My City of Ruins
by TheFicChick
Summary: ON HIATUS. Two buildings. Two planes. Two people in love. One day that changed the world.
1. Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning

_**A/N:** "Broken Promises for Broken Hearts" may or may not still be a work in progress; the jury's still out. Another as-yet-untitled piece is also in the works. This idea, however, just wouldn't go away._

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the song "Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning" by Cowboy Junkies._

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning**

"So what do you have scheduled today?" Addison said, frowning at a page in the Style section of the _Times. _She sipped the decaf latte Derek had picked up from Starbucks after his run through Central Park and flipped the page. "Ugh. I am so not going to start wearing Capri pants again. I don't care what Calvin Klein says." She looked up from the page and placed both elbows on the table, taking another sip of her latte. "So?"

"I think you'd look good in Capris," Derek replied scanning the Sports section for the box score from Sunday's Yankee game.

Addison suppressed a smile. "Thank you, sweetheart. But I meant 'so what have you got scheduled today?' Not 'so what do you think of the pending return of cropped pants?'"

He glanced up, a sheepish half-smile on his face. "Sorry." The sheepishness morphed into mischievousness. "The idea of you baring a little leg got me distracted."

She chucked. "More like the all-consuming need to see the Yankees beat the Red Sox got you a little distracted."

He grinned and closed and folded the paper, placing it on the table beside them. "Sorry," he repeated. "I didn't get a chance to check yesterday's paper. They don't have the game result from two days ago, anyway." He paused, taking a sip of his own coffee and shrugging. "Nothing interesting today. The usual. How about you?"

"I have that conference downtown, remember?"

"Right. The girly conference."

She feigned offense. "The 'Issues in Women's Health' conference."

He nodded, smiling slightly. "Right. Wasn't that what I said?"

She smiled in return and rose from the table, bending over him and placing a hand on his cheek. "You're lucky you're cute, Shepherd, you know that?"

He nodded again. "I do. Although I'm guessing that I have _some _other redeeming qualities besides my insanely good looks."

She scrunched up her nose and looked at the ceiling. "You would think," she replied.

"If memory serves, you seemed excessively convinced of my 'qualities' last night. Qualities, I might add, that had nothing to do with looks." He raised an eyebrow, smiling smugly as his wife blushed.

"OK, fine, you're right, you're the man." She tossed her empty coffee cup in the trashcan as she grabbed an H&H bag from the marble countertop. "Are you going to eat the last bagel?"

"Nah," he replied, shaking his head as he rose from the table. "You take it. I can grab something on the way to the office." He kissed her temple. "Besides, with all that estrogen flying around, you're going to need your strength. The only thing tougher than a room full of women is a room full of women with MD's."

"You know, on behalf of my gender, I should be offended."

"But you can't. Y'know… on account of my good looks. And my… _qualities_." He wiggled his eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes and ignored him. "Besides, I'll have you know that not all the doctors at the conference are going to BE women. It's a conference about women's health. There will be plenty of male doctors there. Mark's even going."

"Mm," he replied, finishing what was left of his coffee and disposing of the cup in the trash. "Right. He did tell me he'd be out today. I forgot." He opened the fridge and handed her the butter as she popped the bagel into the toaster. "So how long is the conference?"

"Well, it starts at 9 and there are sessions all day until 5." She shrugged. "Rush hour, subway… I'll probably be home around 6:30."

He nodded. "OK. Well, you said you wanted to see that movie… what was the one? The scary one with Nicole Kidman?"

"_The Others_."

"Right. I thought maybe we could grab some dinner at Masa and see it afterward."

"Oooh, Japanese. I could so eat Japanese tonight." She paused and leaned against the counter. "But can we see a different movie?"

He shrugged. "OK. Which one?"

"_Bridget Jones's Diary_?" She had the good sense to look sheepish.

"Are you serious?"

She smiled. "If you say yes, I'll show you some of _my _… 'redeeming qualities' when we get home."

He sighed. "OK, fine." He shook his head. "Honestly, I've never known such a smart woman who loves cheesy chick-flicks like you do."

"Thank you." She pecked him on the lips as the bagel popped up and she grabbed it, hurriedly spreading a thin layer of butter on each half and glancing at her watch. "Damn. I told Mark I'd meet him at the subway station on 59th at 8:00." She tore a piece of paper towel off the roll and wrapped the bagel in it. "I'll see you later?"

He nodded. "Yep. Oh, don't forget to ask him about those tickets to the next home game, if you still want to go."

"Got it," she replied, grabbing her briefcase and keys as she blew him a kiss and pulled the door closed behind her.

He smiled slightly to himself as he wiped the bagel crumbs off the counter and into the trashcan before heading upstairs to shower. He climbed the stairs and passed through the master bedroom, entering the bathroom and turning on the shower. He returned to the bedroom while he waited for the water to heat up, grabbing a pair of clean boxers and socks from the bureau before switching on the television and changing the channel from Addison's beloved Food Network. As he headed back into the bathroom, he glanced at the clock: 8:05. He hoped his wife hadn't missed Mark; the trek downtown from the Upper West Side could take awhile during the morning rush hour, and the subway was far less tedious when you had company. He could hear the voice of the New York 1 channel's news anchor opening the news show with the standard greeting.

"Good morning, I'm Pat Kiernan and today is Tuesday, September 11, 2001."

---

_Sun comes up, it's Tuesday morning  
Hits me straight in the eye  
Telephone's ringing, but I don't answer it  
'Cause everybody knows that good news always sleeps 'til noon_

---


	2. Goodbye Blue Sky

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the song "Goodbye Blue Sky" by Pink Floyd._

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. But I'm working on it.

* * *

**Chapter 2: Goodbye Blue Sky**

Addison smiled gratefully when she saw Mark leaning against the MetroCard machine near the turnstiles. "Sorry I'm late," she said breathlessly as she approached him. She noted the resentful looks on the faces of two teenage girls standing against the opposite wall and guessed they had been making eyes at him before she arrived. "I tried to call your cell, but couldn't get you."

"Yeah, I forgot it," he replied. "Anyway, don't worry. Plenty of time. Besides… what kind of big-name speaker are they going to bring in for the keynote address of a chick-conference, anyway?"

She rolled her eyes. "You and Derek really might as well be brothers." She switched her briefcase to her other hand as she reached into her coat pocket for her MetroCard. "Shouldn't a plastic surgeon be a little more sensitive to women's issues?"

He shrugged. "Hey, show me a chick with cancer, I'm Mr. Sensitive. But show me a former trophy wife desperate to distract her philandering husband from the babysitter and I tend to get a little more cynical."

She raised an eyebrow as she retrieved the card. "And you're one to lecture on philandering?"

He held up his hands in mock offense. "Hey, hey now. I'm not a philanderer. You have to be in a committed relationship to philander. Conducting a series of non-serious relationships concurrently does not a philanderer make."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, whatever does it for you, I guess. Just don't go rubbing off on my husband, you hear me?" She tried to shoot him her most intimidating look and jabbed a manicured finger in his direction, and he laughed.

"Trust me. You've got him whipped enough to the point that any influence of mine is written off pretty much from the get-go."

She nodded as they approached the turnstile. "Glad to hear it." She swiped her card and stepped onto the platform, glancing at her watch: 8:05. She hoped the trains were running on schedule; she hated walking into a lecture after it had started. And the masses of people headed toward the financial district during the morning commute were sure to slow their travel.

---

"Good morning, Grayer," Derek greeted their neighbor.

"Morning, Dr. Shepherd!" The young man gestured toward the clear blue sky. "Can you believe this weather? I'm bummed I have to go to class… although my Media Law professor is pretty cool. Maybe I can convince him to conduct class in Washington Square Park."

Derek nodded. "Hey, NYU is nothing if not progressive. I'm sure you can convince him of the benefits of solar stimulation."

The young man nodded, and turned to face him with a grin. "Hey, you think you could write me a doctor's note? You know, like, 'Grayer needs sunlight for intellectual stimulation' or something? I bet my professor would listen to a brain surgeon."

Derek laughed. "Sorry, buddy. Part of the Hippocratic Oath is 'I will not prescribe bogus treatment to get wayward college kids out of class.'"

His neighbor laughed in return. "Fair enough. Meanwhile… what kind of doctor says 'bogus'?"

Derek shrugged. "The kind of doctor who has box seats to the Yankees/Devil Rays game in two weeks?"

Grayer's chin dropped. "Are you serious? Man, I KNEW I should have gone pre-med. Media studies isn't going to get me CRAP."

Derek laughed again. "Well, you never know."

The door behind Grayer opened and out stepped a woman dressed in head-to-toe designer fashions, whose familiarity with plastic surgery Derek didn't need a medical degree to recognize. "Good morning, Cynthia."

"Oh, good morning, Derek. How are you? How's Addison?"

"We're both well, thanks."

The woman looked up and down the street. "Where is the car?" Her son shrugged. "Honestly, you say 8:10, you expect them to be here at 8:10. This frequent tardiness is unacceptable. I have a _schedule._" She disappeared back inside the brownstone that connected to the Shepherds' and Grayer shrugged, this time at Derek.

"A _schedule_," he repeated, smirking.

Derek laughed again and gestured toward the street. "Go. Learn. Get educated. I have to go save lives."

Grayer laughed and waved in parting. "See ya, doc."

"See ya, kid," Derek replied, jingling the keys in his pocket as he descended the stairs of the brownstone. He turned in the opposite direction from where his neighbor had gone and headed up the sidewalk. He breathed in deeply and glanced up at the clear blue sky. It was uncharacteristically warm for mid-September; one of the few lingering summer days before fall set in and the city streets grew colder. He glanced at his watch: 8:10. Plenty of time to walk to the office. For someone who was a New Yorker by birth, he relished warm weather, and hated when the cold of winter took over the city streets and turned everything gray. More than once, he and Addison had fantasized about retiring somewhere tropical. She loved the warm weather as much as he did. They both, however, relished life in a big city. Where else could you order Chinese food at 2 a.m. or run into Michael J. Fox standing in line for bagels? Addison especially liked the city life. Not only was New York City a fashion mecca, but the conveniences were irrefutable. Added to which, where else in the world would you get to attend a work-related conference in as majestic and world-renowned site as the World Trade Center complex?

---

Addison sighed as she rummaged through her briefcase. "I HATE this thing. I can never find anything in it."

Mark chuckled. "Maybe that's because you women make them pull double-duty. Purse? Briefcase? Purse? Briefcase?" He gestured toward her black leather bag as she triumphantly pulled a tube of lip gloss from its depths. "See?"

She grunted. "Shut up, Mark. Besides, hauling a briefcase AND a purse just looks ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that it looks like I'm packing for a weeklong excursion instead of a daylong conference." She rolled the wand over her lips and pressed them together. She slid the tube back inside the bag, this time securing it in one of the penholders. "There. All it takes is a little ingenuity."

He chuckled and shifted as someone claimed the seat next to him. "God, I hate the subway in the morning."

"Oh, relax. Here. Have some bagel." She extended half of the ring toward him and he accepted it, nodding his thanks.

"So," he said, taking a bite. "How are things with the Shepherds?"

"Good. Oh, Derek wanted me to ask you about those tickets for the game."

Mark nodded. "Yours if you want them. My buddy bailed on me, so I have three instead of two. So, if you have any hot friends who might be interested…" He trailed off, raising an eyebrow.

Addison laughed and swallowed a bite of the bagel. "Oh, please. I am _not _setting you up with any more of my friends. That ship has sailed."

Mark attempted to look hurt. "Why not?"

"Because I would like for them to _remain _my friends, thank you."

"What? What's that supposed to mean? Who have you set me up with that is no longer your friend as a direct result of me?"

Addison held up a finger. "Beth." And another finger. "Jill." And another. "Caitlin."

He held up his hands. "OK, OK. I get it." He sighed. "Well, if you have any ugly friends who are baseball fans…" He waved his hand. "Whatever."

She laughed. "Well, thanks for that. We'll take two of the tickets, anyway. I'm sure you can scrounge up a fourth sometime in the next week or so."

He nodded. "This is true." He finished his half of the bagel and brushed his hands together. "Thanks for breakfast."

"Sure." She looked at her watch: 8:20. Thankfully, despite the volume of people, the trains were running on schedule. They should be in the financial district by 8:30. Perfect. With thirty minutes to spare, they could hop on the elevator and ride all the way up to Windows on the World for a cup of coffee before the conference started. She hadn't been to the top of the towers in years, and today it would be clear enough to see for miles. She finished her half of the bagel and mimicked Mark's hand-brushing, then retrieved her lip gloss from the bag once again to retouch.

---

Derek unlocked the front door to the practice he shared with Mark and flipped the light switch. He glanced around the waiting room, noting that one of the assistants had reorganized the overflowing magazine rack. He walked past the counter and down the hallway to his office, unlocking the door and entering the darkened room, breathing in the scent of the wooden bookshelves that lined the walls. Addison had helped him decorate the office when he and Mark opened the practice; while his tastes tended toward minimalist, she reasoned that the personal quarters of a doctor were a place that needed to convey competence as well as comfort, given the type of news that was generally delivered within its walls. She and the designer had done a good job, and the office – in addition to being classy – was comfortable. He cracked his knuckles in the quiet of the office – quiet that would soon give way to the buzz of patients and nurses. He enjoyed the fixed hours and relative calm of private practice, but sometimes he missed the activity and bustle of the hospital setting. He turned on the light and walked around his desk, sinking into the leather reclining desk chair and turning on his computer. As the machine hummed to life, he grabbed his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and glanced at his watch: 8:30. He wouldn't be disturbing the conference yet. He flipped the phone open and dialed his wife's number.

---

Addison put a hand to her coat pocket as she felt the vibrating of the cell phone from within. She pulled the phone out, smiling slightly as she glanced at the Caller ID screen, and flipped it open.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey babe." Derek's voice buzzed in her ear and she smiled again. Their marriage wasn't perfect, it wasn't storybook, but it was real and good, and she considered them lucky for everything they had. Especially each other. "You manage to catch him?"

Addison nodded, even though he couldn't see her. "Yeah, he was waiting at the station when I got there. We just got to the Trade Center PATH station."

"OK. Well, there's an 8:30 show at the Lincoln Plaza theater. I figure that will give us enough time to eat and make the movie."

"OK, that sounds good." She paused before leaning toward Mark, who was walking beside her. "He says hi." Mark nodded his acknowledgement. "He says hi back," she said into the phone. Pause. "Yeah, I asked him. He said they're ours. And he has a fourth, if we know of anyone." Pause. "OK. I'll give you a call during lunch, if I get a chance. OK. OK." A pause, and a smile. "I love you, too. 'Bye." She flipped the phone closed and returned it to her pocket.

"If I didn't envy you guys so much, I would be nauseated," Mark said, holding the door to the lobby of the World Trade Center's North Tower open for her.

---

Derek double-clicked an icon on his desktop and his Outlook calendar popped up on the screen. He glanced over the day's schedule, mentally cataloging the patients. He had deliberately scheduled a minimum number for the day, knowing that Mark would be out and knowing that it was always good, in a doctor's office, to have some buffer time to play with. A few of the patients were follow-ups, a few were for tests, some were first-timers desperate for a second opinion, a ray of hope, a doctor who could give them what others couldn't. More often than not, Derek Shepherd was that doctor. Bottom line: he was good. He was a good doctor, a good surgeon – one of the best, not only in New York, but on the east coast. And, in addition to being a good physician, he was a good man – something that his patients appreciated almost as much as his medical expertise. He reached toward the "In" tray on the corner of his desk and grabbed the charts that one of the assistants had pulled at the end of the previous day. He always reviewed histories and files before meeting with the patients – he had made it a staple of his work philosophy. He opened the first file, glancing over the medical history and the write-up from the most recent visit. He checked the clock on his computer: 8:35. Twenty-five minutes before the peaceful calm would give way to the bustle of the day.

---

Addison pulled the conference itinerary from her briefcase and studied it as she and Mark waited for the elevator in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The lobby was buzzing: people heading to work on one of the 110 floors in the tower, people attending one of the number of conferences being held in the World Trade Center complex, tourists armed with cameras and backpacks, headed to the top of the tower to look out over a crystal-clear Manhattan morning. She lowered the paper and watched some of them, their palpable excitement giving away the fact that they were tourists, and tried to think back to when she had felt that kind of excitement about living in one of the greatest cities in the world. Sure, she loved it like any New Yorker, but when was the last time she had gone to the top of a skyscraper just because, or gone to Rockefeller Center at Christmas? She made a mental note to do the "touristy" things more often as the doors to the express elevator slid open and she and Mark jostled with the crowd, vying for position on the car that would carry them upward.

As they took their places toward the back of the car, Addison squinted at the paper in front of her. "What's your first session?" she asked Mark, reading over the list of lecture topics.

"Something about Lipo. You?"

"Concerns in multiple births."

He frowned. "Sounds like you could _give _that lecture."

She shrugged. "There's always something to learn."

"I suppose."

Addison felt her ears pop as the express elevator carried them up to the 78th floor sky lobby. They stepped off the elevator as the doors slid open and walked around the corner to wait for the local elevator that would take them to Windows for a cup of coffee. Addison dipped her hand into her pocket as her phone vibrated once more. She retrieved it and glanced at the Caller ID. "Office," she explained to Mark as she flipped it open. "Addison Shepherd," she said into the phone. She frowned, plugging her other ear with her finger. "What? Hello?" She frowned again and looked at the phone. "Dammit."

"What?" Mark asked.

"Dead. I forgot to charge it last night. Damn. I need to call them back." She glanced at her watch: 8:37. "I'm going to run back down to the lobby and use their courtesy phone just to check in. I'll meet you at Windows, OK? Grab a table… I'll be five minutes."

"OK." Mark nodded. "See you up there." He stepped onto the elevator and ascended toward the restaurant at the top of the tower as Addison headed back to the express elevator that would take her back down to the lobby.

---

"Good morning, Dr. Shepherd." The nurse poked her head around the neurosurgeon's door, her glasses on top of her head.

Derek looked up from the file in front of him. "Good morning, Iris." It was their daily ritual; Iris, the most senior nurse in the practice, was always the first of the staff to arrive, after Derek. She would greet him and set about making coffee, turning on lights, starting up computers and machines, and filing any charts that hadn't made it back into the files at the end of the previous day. It was largely due to her presence that the practice was the success it was; her organizational skills were invaluable to Mark and Derek, each of whom had their own style of orderliness, but both of which left much to be desired.

"Can I get you anything?"

"No, I'm fine, thank you. Just prepping for Mrs. O'Reilly."

She nodded. "I'll be sure to let you know when she's here."

He nodded in return. "Thanks."

She slipped back out of the office and closed his door once again. He checked his watch: 8:38. Twenty more minutes of peace.

---

"Hey, Annabelle, it's Addison. Someone from the office just tried to call me, but my cell's dead." She paused, listening to the voice on the other end of the phone. "OK, which hospital is she in?" She nodded again. "OK. OK, well listen, she's not going to do much in the next few hours, but if she progresses quickly or has any complications, call me, OK? Just call the building and tell them which conference I'm in and have them page me." She paused again. "OK. OK. Thanks, Annabelle." She replaced the phone in its cradle and smiled at the woman behind the desk. "Thank you so much," she said. The woman nodded and Addison headed back to the elevators to meet Mark at the top. The waiting crowd was larger than it had been just minutes ago as the clock approached 9 a.m. and the working day loomed. An elevator opened, filled, and closed, and Addison remained waiting. A second elevator opened and she joined the crowd in the car, one of the last to make it on before it filled and the doors slid closed. She glanced at her watch: 8:42. That hadn't taken nearly as long as she expected. Just enough time for a quick cup before the opening address.

---

Mark checked his watch: 8:43. Windows was starting to fill up, as people were filing in for the Waters Financial conference that was being held within in the restaurant. He had already had four people approach him to inquire as to whether or not he was part of the gathering. Addison wouldn't have time to get and drink a coffee before the conference now, anyway, and calls from her practice were notoriously long-winded. He drained what was left in his mug and rose from the table, wiping his mouth on the white linen napkin. He glanced once more out over the clear blue Manhattan sky, grabbed his briefcase, and headed out of the restaurant, stepping onto the elevator and heading for the lobby to track her down.

---

Derek lifted his head from the chart once more as his cell phone buzzed on his desk. He picked it up and glanced at the screen: Nancy. He flipped it open and leaned back in his chair.

"Hey, Nance," he greeted.

"Hey, Derek. Good morning. I haven't disturbed you from work, have I?"

"Nope. Just reviewing a file before my first patient. Everything OK?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah, I just had a few minutes before my shift so I thought I'd give you a call. Mom wants to know if you and Addison are going to come for dinner on Sunday. The rest of the girls are going, so she was hoping the apple of her eye would be coming as well."

Derek snorted. "C'mon, Nance. Hardly the apple." They both knew, however, that her words held a certain amount of truth. After their father had died years ago, Derek had taken it upon himself as the only son to step in as the "man of the house." His mother and sisters had gratefully accepted his willingness to play that part, and it had quickly cemented his place in the family structure. He was the one they all called – mother and sisters – with good news, bad news, problems, questions, or simply, mostly in his mother's case, when they needed company.

"So? You going to be joining us?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, probably," he replied. "I'll have to check with Addison, but I don't think she's got anything going on."

"OK. Good. It'll be good to see you guys. Labor Day weekend wasn't the same without you."

"Yeah, I know… sorry about that."

"It's fine, just good to know that a ball game takes precedence over your family. Especially since I watched the highlights and there _was _no Yankee game that weekend."

Derek frowned slightly. "Since when do you watch SportsCenter?"

"Don't change the subject. Now, why exactly did you make up an excuse not to come to the annual Shepherd Family Labor Day weekend shindig? It better be good, Derek – I have Mom on speed dial."

"It's no big deal, Nance. Addie just wasn't feeling well, that's all."

"Oh. Is she OK? She didn't mention anything when I spoke to her a few days ago."

"Oh yeah, she's fine. Just a bug, y'know? We just didn't want the Family Shepherd to get all worked up."

"A bug? That's weird. Addison never gets sick."

"Yeah." Derek shifted in his seat, his sister's interrogation making him uneasy. "Well, listen Nance, I gotta get back to work… I'll see you this weekend though, OK?"

"OK. Tell Addison I said hello."

"Will do. Thanks for calling."

"No problem. Love you."

"Love you, too. 'Bye." He replaced the phone in its cradle and grabbed a pen from his drawer, jotting "Dinner with fam – Sunday" on a Post-It near his left elbow. He popped the cap back on the pen and stuck the Post-It to the corner of his computer monitor. He was excited about seeing his family, but a new sense of nervousness tinged the edges. His mother, ever intuitive, had a way of sniffing out when any of her children were hiding things from her. And he had a feeling that before the evening was through, she would have somehow figured out that her thirteenth grandchild – and the first Shepherd – was on its way.

Derek checked his watch: 8:44. He flipped the file closed and rose from his desk, deciding he needed a second cup of coffee before seeing his first patient.

---

Addison stepped off the elevator as the doors slid open and revealed the 78th floor sky lobby to her once again. She walked to the local elevator and joined the crowd waiting to ascend to the higher floors. She checked her watch: 8:46. She hoped she would catch Mark before he descended to check in for the conference. And, at the same time, she hoped he wouldn't notice when she ordered decaf. She placed a hand on her stomach, thankful that the bagel had settled the flip flops that had been happening earlier that morning. She had been a neonatal specialist for years and had heard thousands of women talk about morning sickness; if she had known how truly relentless it was, she probably would have been more sympathetic. The elevator doors opened and she merged with the people who were headed to floors above the 78th. The doors slid closed once again and the elevator began its ascent.

---

Mark glanced around the North Tower lobby, which was buzzing with people. He craned his neck in an attempt to catch sight of Addison's distinctive red hair in the crowd. He walked toward a woman sitting behind a desk to ask if his friend had used her phone when suddenly he felt the building around him shudder.

---

_Did you see the frightened ones  
Did you hear the falling bombs  
Did you ever wonder  
Why we had to run for shelter  
When the promise of a brave new world  
Unfurled beneath a clear blue sky  
The flames are long gone  
But the pain lingers on_

---


	3. Blue Morning, Blue Day

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the song "Blue Morning, Blue Day" by Foreigner._

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.

* * *

**Chapter 3: Blue Morning, Blue Day****  
**

Derek sipped his coffee as he leaned against the reception desk, filling Iris in on the first few patients who would be crossing their paths that morning. He checked his watch once again: 8:50. The first patient would be walking in at any moment. The door to the practice opened and in walked Abby, the young receptionist who was in charge of the front desk. "Morning," Derek greeted.

"Morning," she replied, walking around the desk and dumping her bag beneath it. She placed her travel coffee mug next to her computer and shrugged out of her jacket. "I never should have even put on a coat this morning. It's still too warm out. Hey, did you guys hear? A plane hit the World Trade Center."

"What?" Iris beat Derek to the punch and he stared at Abby, his mouth open and his brow creased.

"Yeah, I just heard it on the radio," she said, holding up the small transistor radio with an earpiece, which she listened to as she commuted to and from work on the subway. "I guess some idiot in a private plane wasn't paying attention." She paused. "I probably shouldn't speak ill of the dead, huh?" She shrugged. "But really, how blind do you have to be to run into a building that big? On a day when there _literally _isn't a cloud in the sky? Maybe he was drunk."

Derek nodded, trying to ease the knot that had formed in his stomach at her words. Surely a small plane couldn't do any real damage to a building of that size. He placed his coffee cup down on the counter and forced a smile. "OK, ladies, I'm going to go and get ready… buzz me when Mrs. O'Reilly arrives."

"Will do," Iris replied, opening a file drawer and replacing a manila folder within.

Derek walked back to his office and closed the door gently before rounding his desk and picking up his cell phone off the desk's surface. He quickly hit the speed dial button for Addison's number – 1 – and drummed his fingers on the desk impatiently as he waited for it to connect. He sighed as the call went directly to her voicemail; she must have turned it off and gone into the first session already. He closed the phone without leaving a message and opened it again to try Mark's number. His friend rarely remembered his cell phone at all, but if he had, Derek was fairly certain he wouldn't have remembered to turn it off. He hit speed dial and "2" for Mark and listened as the phone rang in his ear. He counted seven rings before his friend's voicemail picked up; again, he hung up without leaving a message.

The intercom on his office phone buzzed and Iris's voice filled the room. "Dr. Shepherd? Erin O'Reilly is here a little early for her appointment."

He pressed a button and leaned toward the speaker. "Thank you, Iris. I'll be right there."

He pulled his white lab coat off the back of his chair and slid into it, wrapping his stethoscope around his neck. Addison or Mark would have called him if it had been serious. Besides, in a tower that size, they probably didn't even know what had happened. He retrieved the patient's file from his desk. "A small plane and a skyscraper," he said to himself. "Nothing to worry about." He opened his office door and exited, walking into the adjoining exam room to meet his first patient of the day.

---

"OK, Erin, we'll go ahead and schedule those tests for next week, and we'll follow up after the results are back, OK?"

The young woman nodded her head. "Thank you, Dr. Shepherd."

"My pleasure." He nodded at her and smiled, following her out of the room and heading for the reception desk. He retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen: no missed calls. Normally he left it in his office, but today he had silenced it and slid it into the pocket of his lab coat, hoping that Mark or Addison would call him and put his mind at rest. Silencing it meant he wouldn't hear it ring, but a missed call from his wife's phone would be good enough to ease his anxiety. He glanced at his watch: 9:02. He had twenty minutes before his next appointment, so he ducked into Mark's office and switched on the television set his friend kept tuned to ESPN during office hours. He changed the channel to New York 1, which was showing live footage of downtown Manhattan – live footage, he was appalled to see, of a plume of smoke billowing from the upper half of one of the Twin Towers. He sat heavily on Mark's desk, staring at the set and trying to remember which tower Addison's conference was in. He vaguely remembered her saying something about Windows on the World, which he was fairly certain was in the North Tower. He racked his brain – he could never remember which tower was which just by looking at them. The footer at the bottom of the screen said simply, "Plane strikes World Trade Center;" it gave no details about which tower had been hit.

"Dr. Shepherd?" Derek looked up to see Abby in the doorway to Mark's office. "Your 9:30 and 10:00's both called to reschedule." She shrugged. "I guess people are a little freaked. Or a little intrigued."

He nodded. "OK." He turned his focus back to the screen. He was dimly aware of Abby stepping inside the office, Iris right behind her. "Wow." She sat beside him on the desk and Iris took one of the chairs in front of it. After a moment of overwhelmed silence, she frowned. "Wait… wasn't Dr. Sloan's meeting at the Trade Center?"

Derek nodded again. "It wasn't a meeting. It was a conference."

Abby nodded. "Right. The 'Issues in Women's Health…'" She trailed off as realization struck her. "The conference Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd was going to." Iris gave the younger woman a look and she fell silent, turning her focus to the picture on the screen – a clear blue sky marred by a black curl of smoke.

The newscaster's voice was professional as he related the details that had been confirmed. "What we're looking at now is the North Tower of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan—" His voice halted as what looked like an explosion erupted from the second tower. "Oh my God." The anchor's voice cracked.

Derek leapt up from the desk and stared at the screen, trying desperately to register what he was seeing.

"Wait. Did the police helicopter get too close?" Abby asked, squinting at the screen. Suddenly, the screen broke into a replay from a different angle – one that clearly showed a plane flying into the side of the second tower and causing the eruption of fire and smoke. "How does that happen? Was it the smoke?"

Derek shook his head slowly. "You don't understand. They're doing it on purpose."

"Who?"

He shook his head again and stared at the screen.

---

Derek checked his watch again: 9:37.

Pat Kiernan's voice came back over the image of the burning structures. "We have just received news that a plane has struck the Pentagon."

Derek swallowed the lump that was forming in his throat. "Iris." His voice was quiet, but steady. "Cancel all appointments today. Tell them to call back tomorrow to reschedule." Iris nodded and exited the room, signaling for Abby to follow her. Derek watched the screen for a few more moments, staring at the growing trail of smoke across the clear early autumn sky and shrugged out of his lab coat, leaving it in a heap on Mark's desk. He turned off the TV and closed Mark's door behind him. "Girls, I'm going home. You should do the same. I'll see you both tomorrow."

He retrieved his keys and jacket from his office and left, taking out his cell phone and dialing Addison's number once again. This time, he listened to her entire voicemail greeting. As the beep sounded in his ear, he swallowed. "Addie. It's me. I just – I just needed to make sure you were OK. Please – just please call me. As soon as you get this." He hung up and broke into a jog as he headed uptown toward their brownstone.

---

As he entered their home, he glanced at the answering machine on the table in the foyer. The message light was unblinking. He picked up the handset to the cordless phone and scanned through the Caller ID; no new calls since the night before. He carried the phone with him as he climbed the stairs and entered the master bedroom. He turned on the TV set and was greeted once again by the image of the two towers burning from the top, like matches that wouldn't go out. He had never seen so much smoke in his life, and was struck by how black it was – none of the gray, airy smoke that he remembered from bonfires at Cape Cod and fireplaces at Christmas. The smoke that was pouring out of the buildings was as black as soot, like a malicious, evil blemish on the sky. He checked his watch: 9:49. Usually the sessions at conferences were 50 minutes; he figured once Addison realized what was going on, she'd turn on her phone and call him. He tried to listen to the newscaster but couldn't get past the image of the blazing inferno that had engulfed the tops of the skyscrapers. Each time the network shifted to show the damage at the Pentagon, he got irritated and paced until they returned the coverage to what was happening in lower Manhattan.

The phone rang and Derek grabbed the handset from the bed behind him, hitting the "Talk" button without even looking at the screen. "Addison?!"

"Derek."

"Mom."

"Derek, honey, are you all right? I know you're not downtown, but I'm seeing this on the news and – wait, where's Addison?"

"Addison's at a conference in the World Trade Center today."

He was met with silence for a moment before his mother's voice came through once again, this time barely a whisper. "Oh, Derek—"

He cut her off. "Mom, I'm trying to keep the line open in case she calls. I'll call you when I hear something, OK?"

"OK. Try not to worry, sweetheart. I'm sure she's fine."

"I know. Thanks. 'Bye." He hung up the phone and rubbed his face as he stared at the screen, watching the chunks of debris falling from the upper floors of the North Tower. Addison's tower. He squinted and stepped closer to the screen, gasping as he realized that the chunks of debris weren't debris, but people, choosing to take their fate into their own hands. He stepped back again and collapsed onto the bed. He watched the people plummeting toward the earth, some writhing as if they were falling and others simply dropping, motionless, as if they were already resigned to their fate. His mind drifted back to a conversation he and Addison had had a few years back, when he was dealing with a patient on life support. Her family had battled over the right to let her go or let her fight, and Addison had told him that the one thing she hated most in the world was the idea of being helpless. She said she would always rather have control of her own fate than let someone else take it from her, and then she had made him promise that if she were ever in a similar situation, he would help her take control of her destiny. She made him promise to let her go. He stared at the scene before him, people plummeting to their deaths, and he prayed that his Addison, the one determined to control her own fate – if she was still alive – hadn't given up hope.

The phone rang again and he grabbed it reflexively.

"Addison?"

"Derek."

"Kathleen."

"Mom told me… are you OK?"

"I'm fine. I'm just… waiting. Trying to keep the line open. I'll call you back, OK?"

"OK. Well, is there anything we can do?"

He swallowed, watching as the image on the screen flashed to a shot of bloodied, panicked people surging through the downtown streets.

"Give blood." He hung up the phone without saying goodbye and ran his hand over his face, gazing at the screen through his fingers. Then, suddenly, he leapt to his feet for the second time in an hour, eyes wide with horror, as the South Tower, the second tower to be struck, crumbled in on itself and plummeted toward the earth.

---

"Oh my God," the newscaster said again, as the black plume of smoke became a billowing white cloud of dust, growing upward from the ground and engulfing the city streets.

Derek stared at the screen, at the image of the lone remaining tower, fire raging on its upper floors as the white cloud swelled around its base. After a moment, he rose from the bed and kicked off his shoes, walking into the walk-in closet he shared with his wife. He divested himself of the dress pants and collared shirt he wore for work and grabbed a pair of jeans from a hanger. He pulled open a drawer and retrieved a plain black t-shirt, slipping it over his head and pulling the jeans up his legs. As he buttoned them and zipped the fly, he stared at himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. _This will be the outfit I wear to identify my wife's body. I will never wear it again, after today. _He glanced to Addison's side of the closet and opened one of the built-in drawers. He pulled a t-shirt off the top of the pile of folded clothes – an old college t-shirt that she wore to sleep in or work out in, that he always told her was one of the sexiest things she could possibly wear. He carried it to the bedroom and stood in front of the TV, only halfway paying attention to the newscaster's attempt to be informative when, in that moment, the harsh reality was that nobody had any answers. He pulled open the top drawer of the bureau beneath the TV and rummaged among his undershirts, retrieving a small piece of fabric. He sunk back onto the bed and lifted Addison's shirt to his nose, breathing in the scent of her that lingered behind the scent of laundry detergent. He draped the shirt around his neck and unfolded the other piece of fabric – the infant's Yankees onesie he had bought mere days ago.

The phone rang again and he grabbed it, this time checking the Caller ID. It was a number he didn't recognize. "Hello?"

"Derek?"

"Yes?"

"Derek, thank God. Adele and I just woke up and saw on the news… we just wanted to check that you and Addison were all right." Derek glanced at his watch: 10:01. That meant it was 6 a.m. on the west coast, where his friend and mentor was just beginning his day as chief of surgery at a major Seattle hospital.

"Richard." Derek swallowed. "Addison's there."

He heard Richard murmur to Adele in the background before speaking into the phone again. "Derek, Addison is smart. She's resourceful. I'm sure she's fine."

"I haven't heard anything from her."

"Well, it took us nearly fifteen minutes to get through to you. I'm guessing a lot of the lines are jammed with people from all over trying to call in."

"Yeah. Listen, I'm going to go so the line's open, OK? I'll let you know when I know."

"OK. And Derek? Call us if you need anything, OK?"

"Thanks," Derek replied, turning the phone off once again.

He stared at the TV, at the blazing tower. The anchor's voice paused as he was describing the scene in lower Manhattan. When he resumed talking again, his voice was quiet. Defeated. "We have just received confirmation that a fourth passenger jet crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, about 150 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., at 10:02 Eastern Time. As we mentioned earlier, the United States airspace was shut down at 9:45 a.m. All international flights headed for the U.S. are being redirected to Canada…"

Derek stared at the screen, numbed. Where was she?

---

He checked his watch for what had to be the hundredth time that morning: 10:15. He could feel the cold edges of panic gripping his heart and he tried to regulate his breathing, attempting to ward off what he imagined felt like the onset of a panic attack. 10:15. Addison should be out of her session by now. Surely she would know what was going on, and would know he was worried about her. Maybe she had tried to call him but hadn't been able to get through? He had tried her repeatedly, but was completely unable to connect any calls. He thought back to Richard's words – millions of people must be trying to call in, out, and around the city, and even the overabundance of phone and satellite towers in New York probably couldn't handle being that inundated. He wringed the onesie and the t-shirt in his hands, pacing back and forth in front of the television screen.

His mind fleetingly touched on Mark; where was his best friend? Were they together? Were they hurt? The image of them lying next to each other, bloodied and battered, flashed through his mind and he pushed it away. The thought of losing Addison was agonizing. The thought of losing both of them was unbearable. He stared at the blazing inferno that had consumed the upper section of the remaining tower. He wished he had thought to ask what floor her conference was on, but knew that it was the kind of question that you just don't ask. Not until you're sitting staring at a building housing your family, watching as a section of it raged in flames. He wondered if they had been on one of the floors that had been hit. If they were, he prayed that they hadn't had the chance to glimpse the jet through a window before it tore into their floor. He shook his head; the image of a passenger jet slicing through his loved ones was too horrific.

Suddenly, he heard the front door to the brownstone open and he bolted from the room, nearly falling down the stairs in his rush to get to the foyer.

"Addie?"

"Derek?"

Derek skidded to a halt on the marble floor as he stared at his best friend, covered in what looked like white dust and sporting a large gash just above his left eyebrow.

"Mark."

"Derek."

"Where is she?"

Mark's face fell when he realized that Addison wasn't home. "I was hoping she was here."

Derek shook his head, the panic and tightness in his chest growing. "No. No, she's not here."

Mark's shoulders sagged. "We split up so she could go down to the lobby and call her practice… her cell phone was dead—" He froze as the word left his lips. "She forgot to charge it," he finished, his voice quiet.

They stared at each other for a moment, Derek's eyes filled with questions and Mark's apologetic for having no answers.

"So she went down to the lobby…" Derek said.

His friend nodded. "Yeah. We were on our way up to grab coffee at Windows and her phone rang. She couldn't get anyone on it, so she went back down to the lobby to call them back and I went up to get a table. She said she'd meet me back up there."

Hope flashed across Derek's face. "So if you were on the top floor and she was in the lobby when—" He was cut off by Mark shaking his head.

"I went down to the lobby to find her so we could go check in. I looked for her, but…" He paused. "I was in the lobby when it happened. At first I thought it was a bomb or something… I had no idea… I tried to go up to see if she'd gone back up, but the elevators weren't working. Firefighters and police showed up and started pushing everyone out of the lobby, telling us to look out for things falling…" He trailed off as he could see his friend's brief moment of hope turn to dread.

Wordlessly, Derek turned and walked toward the den, turning on the flat-screen TV and sinking onto the leather couch. He picked up the remote and switched the channel to New York 1, staring at the lone remaining tower. The tower that was the last known location of his wife. He glanced at his watch again: 10:28. An hour and a half. It had been an hour and a half since the first conference session had been scheduled to begin. He thought back to that morning, the last few moments before she had left their home. Had he told her he loved her? Kissed her goodbye? He thought he had, but he couldn't be sure. His mind flashed to the night before, when he had kissed her long and deep, and told her repeatedly that he loved her as they moved together beneath the sheets of their bed, celebrating the life growing inside of her. His mind lingered on the smell of her neck, the softness of her skin, the taste of her kiss. He recalled the whispered, breathless words she had breathed into his ear and played them over in his mind like a record, not allowing himself to imagine it would be the last time he would hear them. He pushed away the images that lingered on the edge of his mind: her face caked in blood, her body twisted in abnormal and impossible angles.

Suddenly, ruthlessly, he was wrenched from his silent reverie by the sight of the North Tower mimicking what the South Tower had done not half an hour earlier: collapsing in on itself and plunging downward.

---

_There is a blood-red circle  
On the cold dark ground  
And the rain is falling down  
The church door's thrown open  
I can hear the organ's song  
But the congregation's gone  
My city of ruins_

_--- _


	4. Empty Sky

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the song "Empty Sky" by Bruce Springsteen._

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.

* * *

**Chapter 4: Empty Sky**

Mark swallowed the lump in his throat. The two men had been staring at the TV screen for twenty minutes, numbed in silent shock. He hesitated before breaking the silence, willing his voice not to waver. "Derek, I'm sure she's fine. People were coming down the stairs, firefighters and policemen were headed up…" His voice faltered and he fell silent once again. He stared at his friend and noticed for the first time that he was clutching two pieces of fabric like a lifeline. He recognized the faded blue scrap as one of Addison's t-shirts; the other, he couldn't identify. He gestured toward Derek's hands, the question in the action. Derek looked down to where he had wrung the onesie and the t-shirt into a ball and eased his grip, the garments unraveling as he lifted them to his face. Mark identified the second article for what it was, and his eyes flew to Derek's.

"Derek…" His voice was quiet.

He could see his friend's throat jump as he swallowed before speaking. "We were going to tell you this weekend." He dropped his gaze to the onesie, draping Addison's t-shirt across his left knee and taking the baby outfit in both hands. He laid it over his other knee and smoothed in out, his hand rubbing across the front of it as if he were soothing an actual baby. "We wanted you to be the godfather."

It was Mark's turn to swallow, as he bit back the sting that rose in the back of his throat. "I'd be honored." Derek looked into his friend's face once again as Mark continued, his voice calm. "Derek, until we hear otherwise, we have to assume that she's OK." He paused. "That they're OK," he amended. "There are thousands of people in lower Manhattan, thousands of people fleeing the area… it's chaos. She may be waiting it out somewhere. Hell, she's a doctor. She's probably trying to help people who are hurt." A small sigh escaped his lips. "We have to assume they're OK until there's a reason not to. OK?"

Derek forced himself to nod around the doubt that was eating away at his ability to hope. "OK." His voice was low. Overwhelmed. Almost broken.

"OK." Mark placed a hand gently on his friend's shoulder and squeezed, the closest approximation to a hug he could bear to offer. They both jumped as the shrill ring of the phone echoed throughout the house. Derek grabbed the handset from where he had clipped it to his jeans pocket. He looked at the screen and his face fell.

"Addison's parents," he said, his voice wavering.

Mark held out his hand for the phone and Derek handed it over without argument. As he pressed the "Talk" button, Mark left the room, opting to have the conversation with Addison's family out of her husband's earshot. Derek could hear the murmuring of Mark's voice from the next room as he stared at the TV. The newscaster's voice became a hum in the background as he sunk back into the couch, still absently stroking the baby outfit draped over his knee.

---

He glanced at the clock above the fireplace: 11:15. Forty-five minutes since the second tower collapsed, leaving nothing but a hazy white cloud in its wake. The phone had fallen silent; no more calls had come in, and Derek still couldn't dial out. Another time, he would have cursed the phones, the towers, the service. Another day, he would have been angry. Today, he had no strength for anger. No energy. Today, every last ounce of strength and energy he had was going into pleading. Silently, unashamedly pleading to a God he hadn't really believed in since he was young, and medicine had become his religion. Any residual energy he had that wasn't being used to pray was being utilized to keep himself from losing control. The onesie and t-shirt were once again knotted together, a tight, compact ball of fabric in his white-knuckled grip.

"Derek." Mark's voice was halting.

Derek turned to face his friend, noting the deep gash in his forehead that was still sluggishly seeping blood. "You're bleeding," he said, rising from the couch with a newfound sense of purpose. "You need a couple of stitches."

Mark opened his mouth to protest, to say that he was fine, or at least to argue that if anyone would be stitching up his face, it would be him. But he recognized the look of resolve in his friend's eyes and closed it. He rose and followed Derek into the downstairs bathroom, taking a seat on the closed toilet as Derek opened the cupboard below the sink and extracted the kind of first aid kit only found in doctors' homes. He gently placed the garments he had been wringing on the counter next to the sink and opened the kit, pulling out what he needed to suture Mark's gash. As he began cleaning the wound, Mark hissed slightly. Derek murmured an apology and continued to focus on the lesion, irrigating it thoroughly and setting about sewing it shut. He frowned in concentration, determined for his sutures to be nothing short of flawless.

After a few minutes of silent stitching, Mark cleared his throat. "Derek, I'm so sorry."

"For what?" he asked, his focus on his work.

Mark sighed. "I should have stayed with her. I should have taken better care of her."

Derek shook his head. "Mark, there was no way you could have known. Why wouldn't you let her go make a phone call?"

Mark sighed again, knowing his friend was right but unable to quell the guilt that was rising in his chest. "You guys are my family. As much as you're a brother to me, Addison was – is – like my sister. Ever since we were young, it was almost OK that I didn't have much of a family, because you guys – you and your family, and then you and Addison – you guys were enough for me." He paused as Derek finished suturing and looked down into his face. "I just… wanted you to know. You guys are my family. And I'm worried about her, too. But I feel like she's OK. And you're OK. We'll all be OK."

Derek nodded, but Mark couldn't tell if he believed him or if he was just indulging him. "All done," he said, rinsing his hands in the bathroom sink and drying them on the towel before picking up his wife and unborn child's garments and walking back into the living room.

---

"We should have something to eat," Mark suggested.

Derek shook his head, gazing out onto the street as the TV announcer's voice continued to speak in the background. "It has been confirmed that the flights that hit the World Trade Center towers this morning were United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11…"

Derek looked at his watch. 12:30.

Four hours. It had been four hours since he last heard his wife's voice.

---

"I still can't dial out," Mark said. "And I tried your computer. There's nothing on any of the news feeds about what hospitals they're taking people to."

Derek didn't answer from his place on the couch, Addison's t-shirt over his eyes and the onesie hugged to his chest.

2:45.

Over six hours.

---

"No, we still haven't heard anything." Mark was trying to keep his voice low, but Derek could hear him from the living room. He had muted the television, sick of hearing the announcer discuss the logistics of the attacks instead of providing the answers that he – and thousands of other people across the country – were desperately awaiting.

He looked at the clock on the VCR: 4:30.

Eight hours.

He swallowed.

---

The apartment was quiet. The TV screen danced from picture to picture, but the sound had been off for hours. The streets outside were far more quiet than usual; the hum of New York City life had been blanketed by the shock and grief of the day, much like the snow of dust that had blanketed the lower part of the island. The quiet was occasionally broken by the sound of the Army trucks and Humvees headed downtown.

5:30.

Nine hours.

---

"Derek, you have to calm down." Mark's voice was stern but tinged with alarm as he placed his hands on Derek's shoulders to stop his friend's frantic pacing.

Derek looked at his watch: 6:30. Addison was supposed to be home by now. They were supposed to be on their way to having dinner and then to the movies. He could feel the tightness in his chest growing, making it harder for him to breathe. "She's dead."

"Derek –"

"They're both dead. My wife. My child. They're dead." Each time he said the word, a jolt ran through his body. He wondered how the pain of that compared with the pain he had inflicted each time he had shocked a patient with a defibrillator.

"Derek, we don't know that."

"It's 6:30!" Derek half-yelled, pointing at the clock over the mantle. "Eight hours, Mark. The building Addison was in _fell down._ It fell down eight hours ago. She's dead. If she wasn't dead, she'd be home right now." He paused. "I need to bring her home. She needs to come home. They need to come home." He went to the hall closet and pulled out his coat, shrugging into it.

Mark followed him, a mixture of confusion and concern on his face, troubled by his friend's uncharacteristic loss of control. "Derek."

"I need to see her. I need to find her. I can find her. Rescue people… they're just looking for anyone. I'm the only one who will be looking specifically for Addison." His voice broke on her name and he swallowed as tears stung the backs of his eyes. "I have to find her," he finished in a whisper. "I have to find her. Even if…" he trailed off, unable to finish. Mark nodded his acceptance and shrugged into his own coat, still marked with dust.

"OK," he said, following Derek out of the brownstone. "Let's go."

---

An ugly haze hovered over Manhattan, the once clear blue day having long since given way to the smog and the smell of smoke that was all that was left of the majestic Twin Towers. Derek and Mark hiked through the uncharacteristically quiet city streets in silence until they ran into Derek's neighbor, Grayer, headed uptown.

"Dr. Shepherd! Dr. Sloan!"

"Hey Grayer," Mark replied, straining to sound glad to see the younger man.

"Crazy, huh? I was just getting to class when I heard… most of the professors canceled classes today. Where are you guys headed?"

"Downtown," Mark replied, glancing at Derek. "We thought we'd see if we could lend a hand down there. Figure there are quite a few people needing medical attention."

Grayer nodded. "Yeah… I've seen a lot of people sporting some pretty serious cuts and stuff walking uptown. I would have stayed to help, but the police were making everyone leave."

"What?" Derek stared at his neighbor.

Grayer nodded again. "Yeah. The Village is blockaded below 14th Street. They won't let you past that point unless you live there. You have to show ID and proof of residence to be allowed to pass – like a piece of mail or something." He paused and shrugged. "But I'm sure they'll let you guys in, since you're doctors and everything. Anyway, I better get home. I don't want my parents to worry, and I haven't been able to get through on my cell phone. Good luck." He offered a half-wave in farewell as he continued his trek uptown.

Derek and Mark resumed their pace, neither acknowledging the newly presented obstacles that might stand between them and Addison.

---

"But I'm a doctor!" Derek's voice possessed the cold edge of panic.

"Sir, I understand that. And it's a very noble thing for you to want to help. But at this time, the site is not secure. There are many fires still smoldering and there are still areas that are collapsing without warning. We have search and rescue teams searching the debris for survivors; if you truly want to help, go to one of the hospitals. They're inundated with patients, and I'm sure they could use the help."

The uniformed man dismissed them with an apologetic but unyielding nod and Derek stared past him, unable to see anything of the actual site. Concrete dust and debris littered the streets, and a sea of paper lined the pavement, but the blockade had been set up far in advance of any true wreckage.

He looked at his watch again.

7:00.

He ached.

---

Their progress uptown was noticeably slower than it had been when they had been heading toward the financial district. The single-minded determination that had dominated their trek downtown had vanished, and now they took in their surroundings. The city streets were at once familiar and foreign. Deli owners were standing outside their restaurants, handing out bottled water to the people still trickling from the site. Storefront windows were already papered with photos and posters of missing people.

Derek's heart clenched as he imagined making up a poster with Addison's face on it. What would he say to make his missing person seem somehow more important than the hundreds of other missing wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, children? How would he begin to describe Addison on a poster? How would he ever do justice to her smile, the glow behind her eyes, the lilt of her voice and the rich warmth of her laugh? Would any of those things even be read, or would they simply be more words on yet another poster of a dead person? He stared at the faces of missing people as he passed, and tried to feel sympathy, but he could feel nothing but his own dread.

His progress faltered as he leaned against a lamppost, his breathing ragged.

"Derek?" Mark paused beside his friend.

"I can't." He stared at one of the pictures in the window; a youngish woman holding a baby. "I can't." His breath caught in his throat and he blinked rapidly as tears rose in his eyes.

"It's OK," Mark tried, but Derek shook his head.

"No."

"We could check some hospitals; maybe she went to help out, like that guy suggested."

Derek shook his head again. "She would have called me if she was doing that. She would have called." The tears began to crawl down his face, and for once he did nothing to hide them. "She's gone, Mark. My wife – my whole life – it's all gone." He swallowed gulps of air, trying to quell the panic that had gripped him. "I can't. I can't…" He clutched at the t-shirt over his chest, wishing he could reach in and grip his own heart. The absence of his wife – and the prospect of existing without her – left a gaping void in him, much like the void that had opened up over lower Manhattan. That emptiness, he understood. The giant cavity that had taken the place of the twin skyscrapers that had dominated the skyline mirrored perfectly the hole that had formed inside him, in the place where she had been.

---

_Now the sweet bells of mercy  
Drift through the evening trees  
Young men on the corner  
Like scattered leaves  
The boarded up windows  
The empty streets  
While my brother's down on his knees  
My city of ruins_

---_  
_


	5. The Sharp Hint of New Tears

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the song "The Sharp Hint of New Tears" by Dashboard Confessional._

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.  
**A/N: Sorry for the delay. I'll be better. I promise. **

* * *

**Chapter 5: The Sharp Hint of New Tears  
**

The two men sat facing each other at the kitchen table, where Derek had faced his wife 12 hours earlier as they sipped coffee and read the newspaper. He silently cursed himself for concentrating on the Sports page instead of Addison. If he had known, he would have focused every second on studying her face, her eyes, her smile. He would have spent those last precious minutes carving the timbre of her voice and the sound of her laugh into his memory, so that he could call them up whenever he needed to hear them. Like now.

He turned the steaming mug of coffee around in his hands, staring into the dull brown and wishing he could go back to that morning. He would hold her and never let her leave him.

His gaze moved from his coffee to his left hand, to the gold band on his third finger, where Addison had placed it eight years ago. He had never taken it off. He operated in it, swam in it, worked out in it, slept in it, showered in it… since she had placed it on his finger on their wedding day, he had never once taken it off. He felt a tightening in his chest as his mind wandered back to that day, and the memory of Addison smiling at him from behind a thin white veil as she walked toward him. He had literally been struck speechless, feeling the wind rush out of him as his eyes locked onto hers from the other end of the aisle.

She had been beautiful. He had known since the first minute he laid eyes on her that Addison Montgomery was a beautiful woman, but on that day, their wedding day, as she walked toward him prepared to make a promise to be his forever, the truth of it hit him in the stomach and he lost his breath. He had spent every day since then marveling at the fact that a woman like her loved a man like him.

He looked at the clock on the stove: 10:15. The phone had stopped ringing. The city streets outside were atypically quiet. In the wake of the collisions, the towers falling, the chaos and terror that followed, the only thing left was silence and a yawning emptiness.

They had run out of hospitals to call. Both Mark and Derek had dropped their own names, knowing the weight that being a doctor carried, and they had attempted to call in favors with colleagues at hospitals throughout the city, but each attempt had turned up nothing but dead ends – Addison wasn't in any of the hospitals in lower Manhattan. Or midtown Manhattan, for that matter. It had been quite a fight to even get answers over the phone at all. Hospitals were complete pandemonium. There were too many victims, too many injuries, too many emergencies – but then again, there weren't enough. Because for each injured person, there was another one missing. For every battered person in a hospital bed, there was one lying beneath a pile of rubble. And, as time wore on, it became clear to Derek which category his wife fell into.

Derek swallowed, and when he spoke, his voice was raw. "You should go home. It's late."

Mark shook his head, his red-rimmed eyes glancing at his friend before falling back to the table. "I'll stay the night."  
Derek said nothing, equally grateful and unsure. As much as the idea of being alone in the house he had rarely spent a night alone in daunted him, he almost wanted to be left there by himself. To wander the brownstone, remembering things that had been his life until now.

He knew what happened to people who suffered severe losses. He was a doctor. He saw it all the time. People who endured this kind of grief became split – between the person they were and they person they become. They characterized their whole life in terms of before and after: things that happened before their life-changing loss and the things that came later. Everything from this day forth would be an "after."

He still had a lifetime of memories to make, and now, none of them would have Addison in them. They'd never have a child together. They'd never get to live in a tropical climate, or take the second honeymoon they'd been saving up for. Nothing he did, from this day on, would be shared by her. He'd never get to ask her opinion, or hear her praise, or have her talk sense into him when he was being irrational. He would go to sleep alone, wake up alone, watch TV and eat dinner alone. He'd ride the subway by himself and make restaurant reservations for one.

He wondered why he wasn't panicking. After they had gotten home, he'd had a complete meltdown, crying like he hadn't cried since after his father died. And since then, he'd been numb. Not to the fact that his wife was gone, but to the true depth and finality of that fact. He understood it intellectually. But emotionally, he couldn't feel what forever without her felt like.

"You don't have to stay," he said finally. "I'm OK."

"I know," Mark replied. "I know. But I'd like to stay, anyway." He lifted his eyes to meet Derek's. "I'd like to keep you company, but I'd also kind of like the company myself."

Derek nodded and fell silent for a moment before speaking again. "I don't know who I am without her."

Mark swallowed against the lump at the back of his throat. "I know," he said again.

"I don't remember how to be just Derek, and not part of Derek-and-Addison. I don't remember what he was like."

"He was strong," Mark replied after a moment. "He was strong and he was resilient. He was an optimist."

Derek glanced at him. "Then he's dead." The last word was a murmur.

Mark's mind flashed back to the night Derek's father had died, and the two had sat together, Derek refusing to cry as his sisters and mother sobbed around him. The crying had come much later. The same muscle that had worked along his jaw on that night was working again. He reached out and squeezed Derek's forearm before returning both of his hands to his mug.

They sat in dejected silence as their coffee grew cold and the city that never slept lay silent.

---

Derek poured himself a glass of the scotch from the liquor cabinet and put the cap back on the bottle, screwing it shut and placing the bottle gently back inside. He glanced around the darkened room, hearing the faint tick of the clock on the wall. He listened for Mark, but his friend had gone to bed when Derek told him he was turning in. He felt bad for lying, but something about making conversation was just making things even harder. He didn't want to talk. He didn't really want to do anything, except focus on breathing in and out and trying to sort through the jumble of thoughts in his head. His eyes fell on one of the pictures that decorated the bookshelf on the far wall. He took a sip from his glass and maneuvered around the couch until he was standing directly in front of the frame. He stared at the image, one of the photos from their wedding day. It was of the three of them – Derek, Addison, and Mark – and Addison was standing between them, her hair pulled back and a smile on her face, the white satin of her dress gleaming in the late spring sunshine. Derek and Mark flanked her, placing kisses on each of her cheeks. You could tell, despite their puckered lips, that both men were smiling.

Derek stared at the picture, and tried to remember the day it was taken. More specifically, he tried to picture how he had felt, but each image he recalled of their wedding day seemed like it was coming from an observer, not from the memory of the man who had gotten married. He could remember everything in vivid detail – from the soft blush of her cheeks to the light, flowery scent of her neck – but he couldn't remember what any of it felt like. It was like a movie reel, with none of the emotion. He glanced at the image of Mark, his best man, and tried not to feel a pang of jealousy that he had been the last one of them to see Addison. He stared once again at his wife's face – her easy, comfortable smile, her smooth skin, her shimmering eyes. He tried to bring to mind the soothing cadence of her voice, but for some reason he couldn't get it right. He tried to hear her reassuring him, comforting him, but nothing he conjured up sounded like her. He stared harder at the picture and then, so suddenly he surprised even himself, he knocked it off the shelf, so that the silver frame fell onto the hardwood floor and the glass shattered. He gazed at the shimmering splinters of glass littering the floor for a moment before he frowned and bent forward, carefully extricating the photo from the frame without damaging it. He sucked in his breath sharply as a shard of glass sliced his thumb and he stared at his thumb, watching the blood ooze to the surface. He stuck the injured finger in his mouth as he stared once again at the picture, and at Addison's smiling face.

"Derek?" Derek spun to face the voice, the picture in one hand and the thumb of the other still in his mouth. Mark stood in the doorway in his boxers and a white t-shirt, frowning at his friend through the darkness. "I heard…" He trailed off, gesturing toward the shattered glass that littered the floor at Derek's feet. "You OK?"

Derek glanced down once again at the photo in his hands. "I cut my thumb," he said after a moment. He raised his eyes to meet Mark's once again and held up the photo. "Remember?"

Mark nodded and stepped into the room, coming closer to Derek but stopping before his bare feet got too close to the splintered glass that had showcased their smiling faces. He exhaled softly, running a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. "I remember."

Derek nodded in response and held out the photo. "Here."

Mark frowned. "What?"

"You should have it. It's a good picture."

His friend shook his head. "No, Derek, it's OK. You keep it."

"I don't want it," he replied, stepping closer to Mark and continuing to hold the photo out for him to take. "I don't want to look at it."

"Derek—"

"I have the negatives, anyway."

Mark gazed at his friend and recognized the set of his jaw that told him to just go along with it. "OK." He gently took the photo from Derek's hands. "Thanks." He gestured toward the nearly-full glass on the shelf behind Derek. "Want to make me one? I'll keep you company."

Derek turned to see the glass of scotch sitting on the shelf where he had placed it before he had bent to retrieve the photo from the floor. He tilted his head, as if he couldn't remember pouring it, before turning back to his friend. "You can have mine. I don't really want it. I actually think I'm going to go take a shower."

Mark stepped to the side slightly to give him room to pass, his brow creased and the concern etched in his face. "Derek, we can talk about—" He stopped as Derek shook his head sharply.

"No. We can't." He glanced once more at the photo in Mark's hands before shaking his head again. "I can't." He looked down at his still-bleeding thumb and stuck it back in his mouth. "I'm going to go shower. Sorry I woke you up."

Mark shook his head as Derek walked past him and he listened as his friend climbed the stairs toward his room. He glanced back down at the photo in his hands and sighed. What do you do when one-third of the puzzle goes missing? Two-thirds of something never equaled a whole anything.

---

Derek braced himself by placing both of his hands on the cool tile wall of the shower as the hot water cascaded down around his shoulders. He dropped his head forward, the water flowing from his head into his face, rinsing away the tearstains that had painted his cheeks. He breathed in the steam from the spray, trying to find comfort in the cocoon of warmth. The water from the showerhead pummeled him – he had always loved the water pressure in their brownstone, and the way their shower could rid his muscles of the tightness and ease the knots that had formed in his shoulders during difficult surgeries. Tonight, however, the steady hammering of the water did little to soothe the tension that had taken up residence in his body.

Addison always made fun of him for taking long showers, but he couldn't help it. When he was growing up, his four sisters had monopolized the one bathroom they shared. In addition to the little time he was afforded in it, he also never got much of the hot water supply. When he finally had a shower of his own, without four different fists pounding on the door and demanding he get out every twenty seconds, he relished in long, uninterrupted showers.

Tonight, he had already been in long enough for his fingers to wrinkle like raisins, but he couldn't bring himself to get out. Something about the marble tile walls and the curtain of steam rising around him made it feel as though he were in a bubble, removed from the harsh realities of the day. He imagined Addison poking her head into the bathroom, tapping on the patterned glass of the shower door and inquiring as to whether or not he would be getting out anytime soon. He remembered one occasion, a few years into their marriage, when she had done that and he had opened the glass door and grabbed her wrist, dragging her into the spray with him. He recalled her stunned expression and her squeal of surprise. He replayed the way she had tried to act mad, but how within minutes she was laughing and kissing him, despite the fact that her outfit was drenched and the makeup she had just applied was ruined.

He squeezed his eyes shut against the sting of fresh tears. He wondered what had happened to the Derek who never cried. The Derek who was a pro at tamping down on his emotions, hiding them from anyone he didn't want to see them. But of course, he knew what had happened to that man. He had lost the person who gave him the strength to be that way. Because regardless of what he showed to the outside world, Derek had always come home to a woman with whom he shared everything. He had revealed to Addison everything he couldn't bring himself to show anyone else: fears, doubts, insecurities, pains, failures. And now, she was gone. And with her, she had taken the man he had been.

---

He sat on the cooling stone of their front steps, feeling the warmth from the day's sun draining out of the concrete like the hope had drained from his own body hours earlier. His still-damp hair curled at the back of his neck, and his bare toes curled around the edge of the step. He shivered, despite the still-comfortable temperature of the dark September night. The smell of smoke still hovered over the city streets, oppressive in its presence, and the quiet that blanketed the city was eerie, as if the eight million people still populating it were holding their collective breath. He stared out into the street and almost wished for the noise and activity he had known for so long. He couldn't decide if his own pain would be somehow lessened by a more normal atmosphere, or if the communal grief of New York City – and the entire nation – were somehow more comforting. He tried to feel something more than his own pain – the indignant outrage of an American, the sympathy of a victim's neighbor, the resolution of a doctor – but all he could feel was the sharp anguish of his own loss.

What would he do tomorrow? He would wake up with nothing beside him but empty space. Then what? He wouldn't go to work – something told him no one in New York would be working on September 12. What would he do tomorrow? What would he do the day after that? What would he do for the rest of his life? What would be his new normal? Would anything ever be?

He tried to picture the next day, the next month. He tried to see his future – any future – but found it impossible.

He gazed down the tree-lined street, his throat raw and his eyes aching. He had lost the ability to cry, even though the severity of his pain hadn't lessened. He rubbed his face, his hand lingering at the stubble on his chin, and he was assaulted by memories. He fought the sudden tightness in his chest as he recalled Addison's squeals of protest when he would kiss her before he had shaved, and the way her creamy skin would turn pink with beard-burn. He closed his eyes against the memory. He wanted to be able to take those memories of her and pull them around him like a quilt, shielding him from the reality of her absence, but the truth was that he couldn't stand them. They were simply too painful, and instead of bringing him comfort, they only served to deepen the cold, harsh truth. Derek and Addison had made all the memories they were going to make together.

He rose from the stoop and brushed his hands over the back of his cotton pajama pants, gazing once more down the street and turning to go back inside his home.

---

Derek stared at his wife's side of the walk-in closet. He had always been impressed by how organized her clothing was; the jeans, then the slacks, then the skirts, then the tops – short-sleeved, long-sleeved, button-up, turtlenecks… it was immaculate. His own side was a haphazard attempt at organization, with pants and shirts at opposite ends of the rack but no real organization in between.

He ran his hand over her clothes, breathing in the faint scent of her perfume that wafted up from the fabrics. He felt the now-familiar sting at the back of his throat, and he swallowed. He glanced through the open closet door at the empty bed; he couldn't bring himself to get into it alone. The sheets were still rumpled from the night before; he knew that meant Addison had stolen an extra half hour of sleep while he was out running. She used to run with him, but since starting with the morning sickness, she had opted to do her working out in the evenings in the form of yoga or swimming. He stared at the disheveled bedclothes, images of the night before running through his head. He remembered back further, to the nights when she would curl her cold feet into his for warmth, and the way she would curl up against his back with her forehead resting between his shoulder blades if she woke up in the middle of the night. He felt his chest tighten as he remembered the feeling of holding her in his arms as her breathing became slow and steady and she gave in to sleep.

He turned back to the row of her clothes and hesitated for a moment before grabbing an armful of garments and carrying them to her side of the bed. He dumped them onto the sheets, staring at the multicolored pile of fabric. Slowly, methodically, he pulled the hangers from the shirts and discarded them next to the bed before kicking off his shoes and climbing into the pile, wrapping himself in fabrics that still held the lingering scent of his wife.

---

The shrill ring of the phone echoed through the brownstone. Derek cracked an eye and glanced through the window at the dimly lit sky. He had read books and heard stories about people who wake up the morning after a tragedy thinking it had all been a dream, but even in his sleep he hadn't been able to escape the truth. He knew in his sleep just as he knew when he was awake: Addison was gone. He was alone. He rubbed his cheek against the silk blouse he had clasped in his grip and glanced at the clock: 6:02. He reached toward his nightstand and grabbed the phone handset, glancing at the Caller ID. His mother.

He pressed the "Talk" button and raised the phone to his hear. "Hello." His winced as he heard his own voice: raw. Cracked. Broken.

"Derek." His mother's voice was gentle, which made the ache inside him grow. "Derek, we're trying to get in. Me and the girls, we're on our way. We're just trying to figure out the best way to get into the city… apparently they've closed the bridges and—"

"It's OK, Mom," Derek interrupted. "You don't have to come. I'm OK. Mark's here."

The truth was, he didn't want his family to come. He had spent a lifetime being the strong one, not letting it show around them if he was sad, or scared, or hurt. He had carefully constructed the image of a strong, unwavering man – a man he was sure they couldn't picture falling apart. And he knew it wasn't a façade he could keep up at the moment.

"Derek—" He could hear in her voice that she wanted to argue.

"Mom, it's OK. Really. Just stay where you are. I'm probably going to want to get out of the city in a few days anyway, so I'll come see you. Just… I'll call you." He didn't wait for her response before hanging up the phone.

He stared at the receiver in his hand, feeling both guilty and relieved at the fact that, even if she wanted to ignore him, his mother couldn't get to him. For once, Manhattan was literally what it was geographically: an island. He was an island within an island – no one could get to him.

And he knew, deep down, that he wouldn't be driving out to Connecticut to see his family anytime soon. As much as being in their home without her pained him, he needed what it gave him: a cocoon away from the world, in which there were memories of Addison to soothe the pain of her absence.

The phone rang again and he sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. He glanced at the screen on the phone that was still in his hand: another number he didn't recognize. He switched it on.

"Hello." He paused, his brow furrowing. "Miranda?" He paused again, listening to the familiar voice on the other end of the phone. He felt his chest tighten and he swallowed. "I'm coming. Right now, I'm coming right now."

---

_Now there's tears on the pillow  
Darlin' where we slept  
And you took my heart when you left  
Without your sweet kiss  
My soul is lost, my friend  
Tell me how do I begin again?  
My city's in ruins_

_--- _


	6. Forever is Tomorrow is Today

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the song "Forever is Tomorrow is Today" by David Gray._

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.  
**A/N: Sorry (again) for the delay. My muse kind of vanished in the wake of the debacle that was the Season Three finale. I am, however, feeling revived and ready to fix the mess that Shonda & Co. have made of our beloved characters. In fic-world, anyway. (Unless, of course, they're hiring new writers. Which, if you ask me, they could use, and in which case, I'm available.) Anyway, enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Forever is Tomorrow is Today  
**

"St. Vincent's Hospital, please," Derek said as he slipped into the backseat of the cab, sliding to the far side to make room for Mark on the cracked black leather seat next to him. The cabbie nodded and reached toward the dashboard, flipping on the meter and pulling out into the nearly vacant street. Derek gazed out of his window as the normally busy city streets buzzed past him. People on bicycles who were usually fighting with traffic rode down the center lanes. Stores and restaurants were shuttered, and many were bedecked with American flags and various patriotic messages.

The radio in the cab was humming at a barely-audible volume, and Derek recognized the trademark jingle that belonged to AM New York. He leaned forward slightly, angling himself toward the opening in the partition between the front and rear seats. "Would you mind turning that up, please?"

"Of course, sir, of course." The driver increased the volume and glanced in his rear-view mirror. "Terrible," he offered, referring to the subject matter of the disc jockey – inevitably, the harrowing events of the previous day. "Those people… monsters." Derek met his eyes in the mirror's reflection and noted the beads of sweat that dotted the dark skin of the driver's forehead, and the moisture that saturated the cloth of his turban. "Monsters," he repeated. "That—" He paused and shook his head. "That is not Islam." His voice was sad, and he gestured to the American flag ornament hanging from his rear-view mirror. "I am not American, by birth. But …" He paused again, as if searching for the words. "But my heart breaks like an American's." Derek nodded and attempted to smile at the driver's reflection. He returned his focus to the passing streets and suddenly wondered how much hostility, how much rage the man would receive in the weeks and months to come, simply because he shared citizenship with the haunting, soulless faces that already dominated television screens throughout the country. He wondered how many New Yorkers would punish the man simply for his nationality, just as they themselves had been victimized less than 24 hours earlier.

He listened absently to the familiar voice of the AM New York's morning radio show host, discussing the transportation situation in Manhattan. Public transportation had been paralyzed the day before; subways weren't running, authorities had shut down mass transit… even the Long Island Railroad had frozen between Jamaica and Manhattan. And yet, less than 24 hours later, the subways were to be up and running, and cabs and cars were slowly making their way back onto the few downtown streets they were permitted to travel. Derek wondered idly how many other cities in the world would go from tragedy-struck to almost fully functional in less than a day.

As they approached downtown, Derek caught a brief glimpse of the skyline between a gap in the buildings, and he frowned as he tried to get his bearings. Having driven downtown too many times to count, he knew that a pair of identical skyscrapers should have been looming, serving as his landmark for the southernmost tip of the island. But the reality of the towers' demise hadn't truly sunk in, and he had still expected the familiar skyline to greet him as they headed south. But there was now an enormous cavity in the view, as if someone had punched out the skyline's two front teeth. Memories flashed through his mind of the times he and Addison had ventured far enough into the financial district to actually hang out near the World Trade Center complex. He recalled the farmer's market that was set up near the World Trade Center, and seemed to remember that it was always set up on Tuesdays. He remembered the fountain that gushed at the heart of the plaza, and the purple, pink and white flowers that had adorned the area when he had last been there – merely a few weeks earlier, when he and Addison had ventured downtown on a whim to watch a salsa band that was performing in that same plaza. He was saddened as he realized it would be their last memory of the magnificent backdrop.

Well, his anyway. Addison would have a whole different last memory.

Addison.

He had answered the phone, just barely past 6 a.m., to a voice he hadn't heard in years: Miranda Bailey, telling him that he had to come to St. Vincent's Hospital, where she was a surgical resident. Telling him that he had to come, because she had a victim of the previous day's attacks, and she was fairly certain that it might be Addison.

Might.

Derek didn't remember much of what followed – his heart had leapt in his chest in a sudden rush of an emotion he had thought he'd never feel again: hope. He had gone to bed devoid of any optimism, knowing with a dulling certainty that his wife was gone. Knowing that Addison would forever be lumped with a mind-boggling number of casualties; that she was a victim of a national disaster. A casualty. A line item on a list of dead, missing, murdered people.

And yet.

Here he was, driving downtown, hoping against every ounce of logic that screamed at him that hoping was perhaps the gravest mistake he could make. Because hoping when you've lost all hope is like signing your own death sentence: if it falls through, there's no recovering. Mark was beside him, wearing a too-small t-shirt of Derek's and his dust-stained jeans from the previous day, his hair still tousled from a night of fitful sleep. Derek was suddenly enormously grateful that his friend had stayed the night before – the possibility looming before him was too great to face alone. What if it wasn't Addison?

Or, what if it was, and she was dead?

Not really dead, of course. Not yet. Because although Miranda wouldn't give him any details over the phone, she would have told him if it was a corpse he was coming to check. Her call to him meant that, at least, the woman he was on his way to see was at least alive.

But, as a doctor, he understood that "alive" and "dead" weren't as black and white as people tended to believe. A person could be medically alive, and yet never open her eyes, never utter another syllable, never really _live_ again. And, not as common although just as possible, a person could appear to be lost, and suddenly recover.

And so, Derek found himself faced with two big questions: was it Addison, and was she alive?

Miranda had told him she thought it might be Addison.

Might.

Coming from a woman who knew Addison, _knew_ what she looked like and would have recognized her instantly, the uncertainty of the identification filled Derek with dread. What did that say about this woman's – maybe Addison's – physical state? Was she that battered and disfigured, that a fellow physician who had known her for years couldn't definitively say that it was her? Obviously she was unconscious, and therefore unable to give her identity. He wouldn't allow himself to believe that she was conscious but unable to speak up; the idea of Addison not knowing who she was – not knowing who _he _was – wasn't something he was prepared to consider unless he had to. Derek found himself suddenly terrified that perhaps _he _might not be able to say for sure that it was her. He shook his head. Of course he would know whether or not it was her. It was Addison. His wife. His life. There was no way he could _not _know.

Miranda probably hadn't seen Addie in at least a year. But Derek – Derek went to sleep next to her each night and woke up next to her each morning, sat across the breakfast table from her, gazed into her eyes as he made love to her. He told himself that he would know as soon as he laid eyes on her – he would know if it were Addie.

"Weird." Mark's voice broke the relative silence of the car and Derek glanced at him, torn from his silent deliberation. Mark gestured toward the streets that had grown progressively more deserted as they continued their journey. "So empty."

"Yeah." Derek nodded again and gazed through the window. The streets of his own neighborhood had been far less busy than normal, but they were nothing like the eerie stillness of the lower streets. The cab ride south had been devoid of its normal honking, swerving, and brake-slamming.

"Listen, Derek… when we get there…" Mark faltered and Derek watched his Adam's apple jump as he swallowed before continuing. "I don't have to… I mean, it's OK if you don't want me to come in with you. I totally understand—"

He was cut off by Derek shaking his head. "No. You'll come. It's fine."

Mark nodded and reached across the small space between them, squeezing his friend's forearm. "OK, then."

Derek mimicked his nod and faced forward, staring through the windshield as they neared their destination. He knew nothing of what stood before him, but he knew that whatever happened, he would need Mark standing next to him. A broken and battered Addison would be shocking; no Addison at all would be overwhelming.

The car slowed as it pulled up outside St. Vincent's, a massive building of cream-colored brick, with two zig-zagged lines etched out of the brick. Derek stared at them, struck suddenly by how they mirrored the lines on a heart monitor – the readout of a healthy heart, anyway. He wondered what the architects had been thinking.

"You are wanting a certain part?" The cab driver met Derek's eyes in the rearview mirror once again.

Derek frowned slightly. "The trauma center," he said after a moment. "Emergency Room," he amended when he saw the driver's hesitation.

The man nodded. "You are not hurt?" he asked as he swung the cab around the corner, pulling up alongside the ambulance bay.

"No," Derek replied, fishing his wallet out of his pocket and realizing that his answer was a lie. "My wife," he began, and trailed off, gesturing toward the former location of the Twin Towers. The driver's eyes narrowed as he frowned, and then widened as realization hit.

"Oh." The sadness that had infused his voice when discussing the previous day's events had returned and he shook his head again. "Monsters," he repeated.

"Yeah," Derek replied. "How much?"

The driver reached forward and flipped off the meter, gesturing toward the sliding glass doors of the hospital. "No. Not today. No fares for hospital trips today."

Derek glanced up from his wallet and met the eyes of the man in the mirror once more. They sustained an unspoken conversation for a moment before Derek pulled a bill from his wallet and folded it, passing it through the partition. He extended it despite the driver's protests and nodded. "Please."

The driver reached out a tentative hand and accepted his tip, nodding slightly. "Thank you." He watched as Mark opened his door and stepped onto the curb and Derek slid across the seat to follow him. "And good luck."

Derek glanced backward at the turban-clad man and the American flag mirror ornament. "You too," he replied, stepping onto the curb and slamming the cab door behind him.

---

"I'm looking for Miranda Bailey." His words were tinged with desperation, and the woman standing before him in scrubs looked nonplussed. He wondered if it was because desperation had been in high supply for the past 24 hours, or if life as a hospital doctor had already dulled her sensitivity to the anxiety of frantic family members.

"Who are you?"

"Derek Shepherd," he replied. "Dr. Shepherd. She called me."

"Derek Shepherd, the neurosurgeon?" The young woman's dismissive tone vanished and was replaced by something that suggested she was impressed. "I'm thinking about going into neuro, actually," she said, leaning against the triage desk. "Or cardio. I haven't decided."

"Dr. Yang!"

Derek looked past her to see Miranda Bailey headed toward them. "Bailey," he said. "Where is she?"

She ignored him momentarily, addressing the intern before her and pointing down the hallway. "There are many people waiting for sutures, and do you know what that means? That means that they are currently bleeding. Bleeding all over the floor. So unless you want to trade in the scalpel for a mop, I suggest you get going."

The young woman grumbled as she departed, sliding a chart back into the rack before disappearing down the hallway.

Derek stared at the remaining woman, whose expression softened. "Derek. Long time, no see." She gestured for him to follow. "Come with me."

The two men followed her order, trudging behind her as they glanced around them at the state of the trauma center. The few beds they could see were filled, and they both knew that patients lying in beds out in the open meant that every habitable nook and cranny of the hospital was occupied. Derek tried to imagine the chaos of the past 24 hours, but found that his extended absence from the hospital environment made it a tough picture to paint. He watched the back of Bailey's head as she marched through the hallway toward the elevators and he forced himself to regulate his breathing. He almost didn't want to see this woman, this last chance of Addison, but at the same time he was desperate. If he had known what room this maybe-Addison was in, he would have barreled past Bailey and sprinted toward the room that held his only hope. That, or he would have bolted in the opposite direction.

Bailey led them down the hallway and toward the elevator, where she punched a button and the doors opened immediately. The three stepped onto the car and she punched another button. Derek watched as the lights above the doors lit up, one at a time.

1.

He could feel a bubble of something rising within him, and as he watched the lights indicate the car's climb, he felt the cold edge of panic wrap its icy fingers around his heart.

2.

He wanted to run.

3.

He wanted to take this little ball of hope he had been given and run with it, protect it from the ruthlessness of reality for just a little while.

4.

He wanted to cling to it, so that he could remember what hope felt like.

5.

The doors slid open and the two men followed Bailey down another hallway and to a closed door. She pushed the door open and entered, followed closely by Derek and Mark.

Both men stepped across the threshold and into a lounge. Derek glanced at the coffee machine and the couches and recognized the familiar setup of a doctor's lounge. His eyes met Bailey's and he frowned. "Why aren't you taking me to see her?"

"Derek, sit down." She glanced at Mark. "If you could leave us for a moment—"

"He's family, Miranda," Derek interrupted. "And I'm not sitting anywhere. I want to see her. I want to see her now."

Bailey nodded slowly. "I'm going to take you to her, Derek. I just wanted to prepare you. She's got some pretty serious injuries, among them a closed head injury, and some pretty obvious facial damage, which is why I couldn't say for sure that it was Addison. We're still trying to determine the full extent of her injuries. She was brought in yesterday evening, but she hasn't regained consciousness yet. The on-call shift last night didn't recognize her and she didn't have any ID on her, so they had her listed as a Jane Doe, but when I started rounds this morning… well, I called you as soon as I realized."

Derek nodded. "What about—" He paused and swallowed. "If it's Addie—" He took a breath and forced the words past the lump in his throat. "She was pregnant. Is pregnant." He paused, the question in his slip-up.

Bailey raised an eyebrow – almost imperceptibly – and pursed her lips. "How far along?"

"Ten weeks."

She paused, then nodded. "We'll have to check. I didn't realize… I'll look into it." He nodded in return and stared at her expectantly. "OK. Come with me."

---

He once again followed Bailey down a hallway to where she paused outside a closed door. Derek glanced toward the small window in the door, which was covered by typical eggshell hospital blinds. Bailey glanced backward at Derek before her eyes lingered on Mark and returned to Derek. He nodded and she turned back toward the door, pushing it open and entering the room. Derek felt his breath catch in his throat as he stepped into the room behind Bailey and his gaze traveled to the hospital bed.

The face of the woman lying stone-still in the hospital bed was a canvas of purple and blue bruises and was dotted with sutured wounds. Her nose was obviously broken and misshapen and one eye was so swollen it couldn't be seen. Her cracked lips were parted and an endotracheal tube disappeared into her mouth.

Something akin to shock punched Derek in the stomach and robbed him of his breath.

Even without the pool of deep red hair spilling across the pillow, he would have known.

He was stupid to have doubted himself.

To have doubted his ability to recognize her.

Because there, lying on the crisp white hospital sheets, was Addison.

---

_I woke up this morning  
I could barely breathe  
Just an empty impression  
In the bed where you used to be  
I want a kiss from your lips  
I want an eye for an eye  
I woke up this morning to the empty sky_

_--- _


	7. Answers We'll Never Get

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the song "Answers We'll Never Get" by Bayside._

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.  
**A/N: Thank you for the reviews. They are my motivation. (See? Two updates in two days. Motivated.) I am still working on **_**Postcards from the Edge**_** and the follow-up to **_**The Nine Parts of Desire**_**, but in the aftermath of what I shall, for the time being, refer to as "The Debacle" (a.k.a. the Season Three finale), my shiny and happy MerDer outlook is a bit damaged. So on with the Addek of it all. (And may I just say… Addison's pending departure from Seattle Grace? Tragic.)  
**

* * *

**Chapter 7: Answers We'll Never Get**

It's a surreal thing, when somebody you thought was dead is suddenly in front of you and alive. If only barely.

Derek didn't know how people usually handled that kind of thing, but all he could do was stare. It was her. Addison. She wasn't one of the thousands of people who were missing. She wasn't lying buried under a mountain of steel and concrete rubble. She hadn't been obliterated or mangled beyond recognition. She hadn't leapt out of a skyscraper window and plummeted to the concrete sidewalk. She had survived. She was battered, bruised, and bloodied, but she was Addison, and she was alive.

As Derek stared at her, he was struck by a wave of gratitude. Even if she didn't wake up, even if she couldn't overcome this, she had come back to him. He had found her, gotten to see her, touch her, feel her again, and he would be forever grateful for that small bit of generosity that the world had bestowed upon him.

He approached her bedside and gently touched her bruised forehead as his gaze traveled to the endotracheal tube protruding from her cracked lips. He sucked in a breath as he stared at her and relished in the feel of her warm skin beneath his hand.

Bailey mistook his gasp for horror as she stood next to him. "She was intubated in the ambulance on the way over…" Derek interrupted her with a shake of his head as he gently smoothed her hair back from her forehead. A row of sutures lined her hairline, making it look like someone had sewn her hair to her scalp.

He was dimly aware of Bailey murmuring to a young woman in blue scrubs about Addison's pregnancy and he glanced at her almost-still-flat stomach. He felt greedy praying for the life of his child when his prayers about his wife had just been answered, but he found himself desperate for confirmation that their unborn child, like its mother, had managed to survive. At least so far.

"Derek." Bailey's voice was gentle. "We're going to page Dr. Freeman – he's our head neonatal specialist, and he can do an ultrasound to check on the status of the pregnancy. We paged for a neuro consult earlier, so Dr. Reither will be in shortly to discuss that with you." She gestured to the woman in scrubs standing behind her, holding Addison's chart. "This is Dr. Stevens. She's the intern assigned to Addison's case, and she'll assist Dr. Freeman with the ultrasound." She paused before continuing. "If you need anything, have Dr. Stevens page me, OK?"

Derek nodded. He took Addison's hand in his. "Bailey?" The woman paused, halfway out the door. "Thank you," he said, still looking at his wife's still form.

She nodded at his back. "Page me when we have an update on the pregnancy, Stevens." The blond intern nodded as her resident left the room and lowered her head to scan the chart in her hands.

"Can I see that?"

The intern glanced up to see Mark standing at the foot of Addison's bed, extending his hand for Addison's chart. She frowned slightly. "Oh. Um. Yeah, I don't know if—"

"It's OK," he interrupted. "I'm a doctor, too." He angled his hand so that instead of waiting for the chart, he was proffering a handshake. "Mark Sloane. Plastics."

The crease in the young woman's forehead disappeared and she accepted his handshake. "Izzie Stevens. Surgical intern – haven't decided yet."

Mark nodded and raised an eyebrow in the direction of Addison's chart. "May I?"

"Um. OK. I guess so." Izzie handed over the chart and nodded toward the door. "I'm going to go page Dr. Freeman." She turned her focus to Derek. "Can I get you anything, Dr. Shepherd?"

Derek shook his head, not averting his focus from Addison's face.

The intern nodded and slipped out of the room. Derek heard the sound of scraping metal as Mark dragged a chair up behind him. "Sit," he ordered, and Derek lowered himself into the plastic chair, dragging it as close to his wife's bedside as he could get it. Metal scraped again as his friend dragged the other chair up next to him and sunk into it, flipping the chart open and scanning the page inside.

"Well?" Derek's inquiry was half-hearted. As a doctor, he wanted to know. As a husband, he wanted to know. But as a combination of the two, he was worried that the medical reality would rob him of his newfound shred of optimism.

Mark shook his head. "Not much we haven't been told." He frowned slightly before clapping the chart closed and leaning over to place it back in the rack at the foot of Addison's hospital bed. The plastic chair he was in creaked as he leaned back and stretched, his back arching and the too-small t-shirt he had borrowed from Derek riding up and exposing his stomach. He exhaled heavily and rubbed his hands over his face.

"So how do you know Bailey?"

Derek checked the monitors above Addison's bed. "She was one of my interns when I was doing my residency at Weill Cornell. The toughest, most capable, most competitive intern I've ever seen. And a damn good doctor. That was when Addison and I were dating and she was doing her residency at Sloane Women's Center over at Columbia; they met a few times when Addie came by the hospital."

Mark nodded. "Right. I remember you talking about her now."

"Dr. Shepherd?"

Derek turned toward the doorway, where a doctor was wheeling an ultrasound cart into the room. He nodded as he rose from the chair and made a move to push it out of the way. "No, you're fine – I can do it from this side." The doctor wheeled the machine so that it flanked Addison's bed and straightened, extending his hand toward Derek. "Scott Freeman."

Derek accepted the man's hand. "Derek Shepherd."

The doctor nodded and offered him a gentle smile as he returned his focus to the instrument before him. He gestured toward the doorway, where Izzie Stevens was entering. "You've already met Dr. Stevens." Derek nodded without looking as he focused on the doctor's motions. He was struck by the familiarity; he had seen Addison's slender hands do this on a few occasions, namely when she was monitoring his sisters' various pregnancies. He glanced at her unresponsive face briefly before sinking back into the chair and gently taking hold of her hand. He watched the doctor slide the sheet off Addison's stomach and lift her hospital gown up over her stomach. The man's movements were practiced and methodical, but had none of the rushed hastiness that was characteristic of so many doctors who believed themselves to be just "too busy" to be amiable. A bubble of gratitude rose in his throat as he glanced at the doctor, a slightly graying man with small, wire-rimmed glasses and a neatly trimmed beard. He reminded Derek of his father – or, at least, what Derek imagined his father would have looked like, if he'd lived long enough to go gray.

He felt a sudden pang in his chest that he hadn't felt in years – probably since his wedding day: he wanted his father to be there. His mother was the emotional one – she would tell him things would be all right, she would take him in her arms and rub his back in soothing circles, she would do everything she could to make him feel better, but he would feel her worry lurking beneath her attempts to soothe him. His father had been the calming one. He had been able to take any situation, from a failed chemistry quiz to a broken heart, and make his only son believe that things would work out. His mere presence had been enough to comfort Derek, without any words being spoken.

As Derek sat at his wife's bedside, preparing to learn the fate of his unborn child, he wanted his father beside him so badly he could feel it like a tightening knot in the pit of his stomach.

"OK, Dr. Shepherd, we're going to go ahead and see if we can locate the fetal heartbeat visually," the doctor said, squirting a pool of transmission gel on Addison's stomach and placing the transducer on her abdomen. Derek stared at the roaming wand, silently pleading for a flicker of movement. He lifted his gaze to the face of the doctor, and tried to read his expression, wishing that the monitor were angled so that he could see it. Dr. Freeman hit a button and tilted his head slightly as he continued the movement of the wand. He pointed to a place on the screen as Izzie Stevens leaned forward slightly and nodded. "Mmhmm."

Derek wished he could read her response. Was it a good sign, or merely the attentive nod of a student? Was it an affirmation that there was something to see, or a confirmation that she understood that there was nothing _to _see? He wanted to jump out of his chair and bolt to the other side of the bed so that he could see what they were scrutinizing. But he stayed put, gripping Addison's hand and letting his gaze jump from her stomach to the doctor and back to her stomach again.

_Please._

The wand roamed the soft, pale skin of her stomach, pausing periodically before continuing its exploration.

_Please._

The doctor hit another button and tapped the screen again for his intern's benefit.

_Please._

She squinted and nodded again.

_Please._

Dr. Freeman hit another button before he nodded himself and glanced at Derek. He nodded again, this time toward him, and gently turned the monitor so that Derek could see it. Derek's eyes jumped to the grainy, black and white sonogram image and he squinted. He stared at the still image, feeling the simmer of dread rising in his throat. He opened his mouth to speak when he was halted by a flicker of movement on the screen. His eyes widened and he leaned forward even further, staring at the display.

Flicker.

His eyes jumped to the doctor's and he opened his mouth to speak, but Mark beat him to it.

"Was that—?"

"A heartbeat," Dr. Freeman finished for him. Derek exhaled suddenly, unaware that he had been holding his breath. He gulped air, staring at the small twitch on the monitor, and he felt Mark clap a hand on his shoulder. "We're going to go ahead and get a readout of the heartbeat with the fetal Doppler," the doctor continued, keeping the instrument against Addie's skin and pressing a different button. He watched the image on the screen as he adjusted the wand's location. He nodded slightly, pressing another button and a small sound filled the room. "There it is."

Derek felt the now-familiar burn of tears at the back of his throat as he listened to the soft flutter emanating from the machine.

His child's beating heart. His _living _child.

He tried to count the beats, but was too consumed by the soft beat that sounded like what he imagined butterfly wings would sound like, if they were audible. He exhaled softly, willing the tears stinging the backs of his eyes not to spill. Mark's hand squeezed his shoulder, where it still rested, and Derek nodded in acknowledgement.

The doctor lingered over the spot, allowing the lullaby to continue for a few more moments before removing the wand from Addison's stomach and wiping the gel from her skin with a paper cloth. "The fetal heart rate's 110," he said to Derek as he crumpled the paper towel and lowered Addison's hospital gown. "It's on the low side, but that's to be expected with the trauma your wife has endured. We're going to keep an eye on it; if we can get it up to 120, I'll be happy." He turned to Izzie and held his hand out for the chart. She passed it to him and he flipped it open, retrieving a pen from his coat pocket and making notes inside the chart. "You can detect the heartbeat after the 10th to 12th week, so your wife is actually at the perfect gestational stage; she's far enough along in the pregnancy that we can detect it, but early enough that the fetus is still protected in the womb." He angled his body slightly toward his intern, indicating that the rest of his speech was for her benefit. "A protruding stomach or uterus is actually more dangerous; direct trauma can result in a placental abruption. The rate of fetal mortality following maternal blunt trauma ranges from three to 38 percent, mostly from placental abruption, maternal shock, and maternal death." He paused, glancing at Derek before continuing. "Placental abruption can present with few or no symptoms, but can have dire fetal consequences, which is why pregnant patients with traumatic injury should always be assessed formally." He returned the pen to his pocket and flipped the chart closed, hugging it to his chest and folding his arms over it. "Factors associated with increased fetal mortality after trauma – what are they?"

Izzie glanced at the ceiling momentarily as she scanned her ever-increasing internal medical encyclopedia for the answer. "Maternal hypotension, maternal injury, maternal pelvic fracture and uterine rupture."

Dr. Freeman nodded. "Very good." He extended the chart toward her and turned his focus to Derek. "We're going to monitor the heart rate, as I mentioned. At this stage in a pregnancy, fetal resuscitation isn't practical, but the fact that we're still getting a fetal heart rate is a good sign. It's just below normal, which is between 120 and 180, so all we can really do at this point is keep an eye on it. There's no uterine rupture or pelvic fracture, which is a very good sign." The sound of his pager beeping filled the room and he glanced at the screen. "OK. I'll be back, but Dr. Stevens will be in charge of monitoring the heart rate. Do you have any questions for me?" Derek shook his head, already excessively grateful to the doctor for being the bearer of good news. "OK." The doctor glanced at Izzie as he exited the room. "Page me if anything changes, Stevens." The blond intern nodded as she returned the chart to the rack once again and set about reorganizing the ultrasound equipment.

Derek stared at Addison's expressionless face and rubbed her hand absently.

She had survived.

_They_ had survived.

Maybe he would survive, after all.

He replayed in his mind the soft whisper of a heartbeat that had robbed him of his breath as he gazed as his wife. The first time they heard it shouldn't have been like this. It shouldn't have been in a trauma center, after a tragedy, with Addison unconscious. It should have been at her own office, with her own doctor, with both of them smiling and marveling at the soft flutter of life they had created.

It shouldn't have been like this.

But he would take it.

---

"Dr. Shepherd?"

Derek looked up from where he was sitting beside Addison's bed to see a doctor he vaguely recognized standing in the doorway. "Sam Reither. Head of neurosurgery. We met at the Mount Sinai neurology conference a couple of years ago."

"Right." Derek nodded.

The man gestured toward the young woman in scrubs standing next to him. "This is Dr. Grey, she'll be assisting me today." Derek nodded toward the woman and turned back to the doctor.

"OK. Well, your wife has a subdural hematoma, so we're going to go ahead and perform the craniotomy now, while she's intubated. She also has some internal abdominal bleeding, so we're going to schedule an exploratory laparotomy to be performed concurrently. We want to minimize the number of surgeries she has to have, because…" He shook his head, realizing his explanation was unnecessary. "Well, you understand."

Derek nodded and swallowed. He grasped at the medical language, thankful for the chance to latch onto something that felt normal. Routine. He tried to ignore the fact that the patient they were discussing was his wife.

"And the baby?"

"We'll do everything we can to monitor the baby, and to avoid jeopardizing the pregnancy." He paused. "After the surgery… well, you know how critical the first 48 hours are. If she wakes up during those first 48, her chances are pretty good." He paused. "OK?" Derek nodded. "OK. Dr. Grey is going to prep her for surgery."  
Derek nodded again and rose from his chair. "I want to be in there."

The surgeon shook his head. "I'm sorry, Dr. Shepherd. The hospital has a very strict policy about family members in operating rooms, even – especially – family members who are doctors. I'll have Dr. Grey update you frequently, OK?"

Derek stared at the doctor for a moment, his shoulders squared and suggesting he was ready to put up a fight, before he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I want actual updates. Not the fluff that you give regular patients' families. I want medically specific updates."

The doctor nodded and left the room to assemble his surgical team.

Derek watched the intern study his wife's monitors and make notes in her chart as he took his place back in the chair beside Addison's bed and took hold of her hand. "Grey," he said, stroking his wife's hand and glancing at the intern. "People must ask you all the time if it's any relation."

The woman nodded without looking up. "Actually, Ellis Grey's my mother." She flipped the chart closed and offered him a small, rueful smile. He supposed it was meant to convey sympathy; he made a mental note not to offer his own patients that smile anymore. "I'm from Seattle. I've never seen anything…" She trailed off as she glanced at Addison. "Like yesterday," she finished.

He nodded to ease her discomfort. "Seattle's nice. Good fishing up there."

She smiled, grateful for his redirection. "I wouldn't know. Not much of a fisher." She tapped the chart in her hands. "She's doing well," she assured him. "Surprisingly stable, given the trauma. And the fetal heart rate looks good."

Derek nodded his thanks and she nodded in return. "OK. Well, I'm going to get her ready for surgery. I'll be sure to bring you good updates." She smiled again as she unhooked the monitors that wouldn't be accompanying them into the OR.

---

Derek had been given lots of answers in the past twelve hours.

_Alive._ It was the answer that had saved him, the answer that had been a ray of sunlight breaking through the darkest, heaviest sky he had seen. It had been the answer to the question he had thought it hopeless to ask, the question he couldn't help but ask over and over again for nearly 24 hours: where was Addison?

_Yes. _It was the answer he had clung to, breathed in, surrounded himself with, when he heard it. It had been the answer to one of his first questions upon arriving at the hospital: had their child survived?

_About fifty percent. _That had been the answer he had gotten when he asked what the baby's chances of making it through Addison's numerous surgeries and subsequent recovery were.

_A routine procedure – a textbook craniotomy._ This, when he asked about the specifics of his wife's pending brain surgery.

He had been surrounded by answers, and while he was grateful for each and every one of them, he was frustrated by the answers he didn't have.

How could this have happened?

Why had this happened?

What could he have done differently, to save his wife from the horror she had witnessed?

When would they get back to normal? Would they ever?

How could he be so selfish, wanting more when there were thousands of people who would never even have the chance to say goodbye? People who would give their right arms for what he had already been given?

What kind of world were they living in, where your whole world could turn upside down in just 102 minutes? What kind of world were they bringing a child into?

He had heard on the news that instruments at an earth observatory more than 20 miles away had registered the impact of the first plane. Their world literally shook. Derek wondered how long they would continue to feel the tremors.

These were the answers he didn't have, and he could feel them bearing down on him. As a doctor, he wasn't used to not having answers. He was used to knowing, being certain, having the solutions.

But when it came to Addison, their life, their future, their world, there were no answers to be found – only more questions.

---

_Sometimes the truth just ain't enough  
Or is it too much in times like this  
Let's throw the truth away  
We'll find it in this kiss  
In your skin upon my skin  
In the beating of our hearts  
May the living let us in  
Before the dead tear us apart_

_--- _


	8. Where Were You When The World Stopped

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the song "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" by Alan Jackson._

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.

**A/N: Seriously. The reviews? You guys rock.  
**

* * *

**Chapter 8: Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning**

"Will you be scrubbing in?" Derek watched as Miranda handed Addison's chart to the intern – the one related to Ellis Grey – and turned to face him.

"No," Miranda replied, stepping aside as Meredith collected the various wires attached to Addison's monitors and draped them over the bed's rail in preparation for her transport to the OR. "Not enough residents on the floor today. But she's in good hands." Derek nodded as he gazed back down at Addison. He stepped forward and reclaimed her motionless hand in his left and placed his right gently at the crown of her head. He stroked her hair softly before leaning down and placing a kiss just above the jagged sutures that spanned her hairline. He allowed his lips to linger momentarily, feeling the warmth emanating from her skin, before he straightened. He gave her hand a slight squeeze and whispered a touch across her stomach before stepping away from the bed and allowing Dr. Grey and Dr. Stevens to wheel it out of the room.

Miranda watched him as he sunk into the chair next to Mark, whose focus was still on the doorway through which Addison had disappeared. "You doing OK?" It wasn't the question of a doctor, or a surgeon, but the question of a friend.

Derek met her eyes and sighed, shrugging. He honestly didn't know the answer to her question. He had gone from normal to worried to frantic to heartbroken to hopeful to optimistic and back to worried again in the span of a day. He honestly didn't know how he was doing in that particular moment. A little bit of everything, he guessed.

Worried that the surgery would endanger the baby.

Frantic that the surgery wouldn't save Addison.

Heartbroken that even if both survived, there was still an ugly reality to deal with.

Hopeful and optimistic that maybe they would actually make it through everything and would somehow find their way back to normal again.

He shrugged again and gave a half-shake of his head. "How…?" He trailed off and glanced at Mark, who was still staring out into the hallway. He looked up at Miranda again and opted for the question she might have the answer to. "How did she get here?" He didn't ask the question that no one could answer: How did _we_ get here?

Miranda gave a small shake of her head. "I don't know, exactly – she was brought in with a man who, I think, helped her get away from the site. But, as I mentioned, I wasn't here when she was brought in, so…" She trailed off. "I don't know, exactly."

Derek frowned slightly. "Is he still here? The man who helped her?"

Miranda mirrored his frown. "I don't know," she repeated. "I don't know if he was admitted." She paused as he stared at her. "I'll find out." She nodded once and exited the room, her passage through the doorway breaking Mark's silent trance. He heaved a breath and rolled his neck, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees, folding his hands together between them as if he were praying. "You hungry?" He glanced sideways at his friend, who was staring at the vacant space where Addison's bed had been.

"No."

Mark shook his head. "Yeah, me neither."

They sat in silence for a few moments before Derek shook his head. "How did this happen, Mark?"

Mark sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I don't know, man."

"What if they don't make it?"

His friend was silent for a moment before he responded, his voice thick with forced confidence. "Hey, they've already beaten some pretty intense odds. In light of everything… I'd put my money on your girl any day of the week." He tried to smile, but the usual light behind his eyes was missing. "Besides… you know as well as anyone. That red hair? Feisty. Addie never goes down without a fight."

Derek mirrored his attempt to smile, but they both failed and slipped back into silence. It hung between them, heavy with unspoken words, until Derek saw Mark lean forward again from the corner of his eye and cradle his forehead in his hands, his eyes trained on the floor.

"Derek, I'm so, so sorry, man. I can't—" He shook his head, and kept his gaze on the ground. "I'm just so sorry. I should have taken better care of her."

"Mark, it's not your fault." But his words were dull, measured, and he could see they offered little consolation. He sighed, and copied Mark's posture, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "Look. Nobody wants to find someone to blame more than I do. Believe me. I'd love to be able to point my finger at someone – someone real, not just a picture of some dead terrorist – and yell and scream and blame them for making me sit here. For hurting Addison. For causing all this. But Mark… as much as I want to blame someone, that someone's not you. OK? It is _not _your fault. It's not. It's not yours, it's not Addie's… it's no one's. No one that we're actually going to get the opportunity to blame, anyway." Mark raised his head to stare straight ahead, but the invisible weight stayed on his shoulders, making him slump in a way Derek had never seen. He sighed. "Mark, you're my brother. I would trust you with my life, and I'd trust you with Addie's life, and the life of our unborn child. I would have before today, and I would now. That hasn't changed. OK?"

After a moment, his friend nodded. "OK." His voice was quiet.

"Dr. Shepherd?"

Both men turned to the door to see one of the interns – the one they had first encountered when they arrived at the hospital – standing in the doorway next to a man in a hospital gown with a bandage on his head and his left arm in a sling. "Yes?"

The intern gestured toward the man beside her. "This is Mr. Royston. He was brought in with your wife."

Derek rose from his chair and approached the man, his hand extended. "Derek Shepherd," he said.

"Alan Royston," the man replied, extending his good arm in return and shaking Derek's hand.

The intern nodded slightly and backed toward the door. "I'll, uh, leave you guys alone," she said, slipping from the room and closing the door behind her.

Mark rose from his chair and extended a hand toward Alan. "Mark Sloane."

The man nodded. "Good to meet you."

"I, uh…" Derek shook his head. "Miranda – Dr. Bailey – said that you helped my wife… I don't know what to say. How to thank you."

The man shook his head. "It's not necessary."

Derek shook his head again. "I thought…" He trailed off, glancing at Mark for help.

Alan's eyes traveled to the vacant space where the hospital bed should have been, and he frowned slightly. "Is she… How's she doing?"

Derek took a deep breath and nodded, running his hand through his hair. "She's doing OK… she's about to go into surgery, but she's holding her own." The man nodded and the two men stood facing each other in awkward silence for a few moments before Derek cleared his throat. "I uh, I don't supposed you'd be willing to relive…" He trailed off, unsure as to how to ask the man before him for anything more than he had already given. Alan frowned for a moment before realization crawled across his features and he nodded slowly. He gestured toward the seat that Derek had vacated. "Oh, of course. Please." Derek nodded toward the seat as he retrieved a third chair from the far side of the room, dragging it across the floor and angling it slightly so that it was facing the other man. He lowered himself into it as Mark sunk into the chair he had just vacated and the two men faced Alan expectantly.

He took a deep breath before speaking. "We were in the elevator together. I was headed up to the 103rd floor – I'm a bond trader with Cantor Fitzgerald." He paused. "Was a bond trader." He fell silent for a moment as he weighed that realization and shook his head. "We were headed upward when suddenly the elevator shook really violently and all the lights went out. Some of the ceiling tiles in the elevator came loose and fell onto people." He raised a hand to his own receding hairline and fingered the bandage. "That's how your wife got that gash on her head. It knocked her out for awhile… she was standing right next to me, and I … We had no idea what had happened; one of the guys tried to hit the emergency button, but nothing happened. We started yelling and pounding on the doors and after a little while a couple guys from the other side helped us pry the doors open." He paused, taking a breath and absently rubbing his splinted arm. "We thought it was a bomb or something, like in '93. We had no idea…" He paused and shook his head. "Anyway, your wife – Addison – was conscious but a little disoriented, so I was helping her down the stairs. There were lots of people in the stairwells, and you could smell the smoke… apparently the staircases above where we were had been wiped out, but we were below the… the impact zone, I guess…" He trailed off and Derek could see his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "Anyway, your wife was doing much better by the time we got to the ground level – by then we had passed a bunch of firefighters, and people had started to say something about there being a fire in the other tower, too, and then we heard something about planes hitting the buildings…" He shrugged. "We got to the lobby and they told us to be careful about things falling from the tops of the buildings. So we were hovering just inside the doorway, waiting to make our way across the plaza, when your wife spotted a woman huddled near the building about twenty yards away. She was hunched over but was crying and shaking, and Addison made a move to go toward her – I didn't realize she was a doctor. Then, suddenly, there was a loud rumbling, crashing…" He paused and shook his head. "A noise like I never heard before. And suddenly there was just this wave of dust and debris flying past. I got knocked back inside the lobby, and just saw a wave of rubble and powder blast by. After it settled and I stood up, I saw Addison crumpled up right inside the doorway. She was covered in the dust and there was some debris scattered around her, but I guess being in the archway somehow shielded her from a lot of it. I tried to pick her up and she was muttering at first, but then she stopped talking. A policeman who had been in the lobby helped me and we got to an area where there were paramedics and a few ambulances, and they brought us here." He paused and glanced between Mark and Derek. "That's… that's about it. I didn't see her again after that point."

The three men fell into a bewildered silence; Derek and Mark tried to picture the details as Alan tried to picture anything but.

---

"Dr. Shepherd?" Derek rose from the uncomfortable waiting area couch and ran his hand roughly over his face. Had he fallen asleep? His hand traveled upward and raked through his unruly hair. He glanced at his watch: two hours had passed since Addison had gone to the OR. He was dimly aware of Mark rising from the chair next to him.

"Yes?"

It was one of the interns – Grey – still in her surgical gown, wringing a scrub cap in her hands. "Hi. Your wife is still in the OR, but I wanted to bring you an update. Dr. Reither has repaired the subdural hematoma and has replaced the bone flap – we just need to keep an eye out for any increase in intracranial pressure. Dr. Fisher – he's the doctor performing the laparotomy – just opened and is searching for the source of the bleed." She paused, and her demeanor went from formal to slightly more relaxed. "It appears to be just a minor bleed, so it should be a relatively short and highly successful surgery, barring any complications."

Derek nodded, grasping the good news like a lifeline. "OK." He continued nodding, his head bobbing like a dashboard figure. "OK. Good news."

The intern offered him a small smile. "Yes. Good news."

The nodding faltered as the second question came to his tongue. "And the baby?"

"Izzie – Dr. Stevens – is monitoring the fetal heart rate – no changes, so that's a good sign."

Derek resumed his nodding and could literally feel Mark relax next to him. "OK. OK, thank you."

"You're welcome." Meredith raised her scrub cap. "I'd better get back to the OR. I'll be back when there's more to update you on – although, if all goes well, the next time I talk to you your wife will be out of surgery."

"OK." Derek seemed to have lost the ability to say anything else. "Thank you."

Meredith smiled. "You're welcome," she said again. She nodded to Mark and turned, retreating back down the hallway she had come from and heading back to the OR.

Mark and Derek sunk back down into the couch and sighed, their motions in tandem and their sighs in unison. They glanced at each other and Mark offered him an ironic smile. Derek tried to return it, and was grateful when a small smile made it to his lips. They sat in companionable silence for a few moments before Mark leaned away from Derek and reached into the pocket of his jeans. He retrieved a small wad of bills and unfolded it, counting through the ones and glancing behind them. "I need coffee."

Derek raised an eyebrow and a skeptical chuckle – just one – fell from his lips. "You do remember how truly awful hospital coffee is?"

Mark gazed at him for a minute, enormously relieved at his friend's attempt at humor. It had been the first spark of anything that wasn't some variation of panic or anxiety that he had seen in Derek since he had first walked through the door to their brownstone. A low chuckle escaped his own lips and he glanced around. "Actually, no. I had forgotten." He opted to push his luck and go for a second laugh. "Too bad the cute intern is in surgery – I could have used some of my charm to pilfer some of the doctors' lounge stash."

Derek frowned. "The blond one?"

Mark shook his head. "No, that's the hot intern. The cute one is the small one – Grey."

Derek shrugged. "OK." He glanced around them. "I'm willing to bet we could find a way to get two cups of coffee," he proposed, grateful for the distraction.

Mark glanced at his friend again, and smiled. "I'm willing to bet you're right. You remember where the lounge was?"

Derek frowned as he tried to remember their first moments in the hospital, but it was a blur of panic and dread. "No."

"Yeah, me neither." He shrugged. "Well, nothing wrong with a little adventure."

---

"Thank God. This is a hundred times better than that machine crap." Mark took a deep gulp from his Styrofoam cup and sighed as the coffee slid down his throat, warming him from the inside out.

"Yeah." Derek took a small sip of his own and glanced around the lounge. Really, it was almost a waste of space – for all the time doctors were actually able to _spend _in lounges, a small counter with a coffee pot and a sink would pretty much suffice. It amazed him how truly alike most doctors' lounges looked – this one was remarkably similar to the one he had developed a caffeine addiction in during his residency. He glanced around the dim room before checking his watch.

"Plenty of time," Mark offered. Meredith's update hadn't been twenty minutes earlier.

"Yeah." Derek turned his cup around in his hands and Mark sighed. Conversation hadn't been this difficult since Derek's father had died. He knew that sometimes, companionable silence was enough. But truthfully, it killed him to sit next to his best friend, his brother, and not be able to allay his fears. It felt like, in the span of 24 hours, he had been able to fail the two people he cared about most.

His inner debate was interrupted by the door to the lounge swinging open, and both men turned, prepared to explain their presence in an exclusive lounge, but their excuses died on their lips as Miranda Bailey appeared in the doorway. When she noticed them, she placed a hand on her hip and raised her eyebrow.

Mark lifted his cup from the table and held it up. "Couldn't stomach the waiting room coffee," he offered.

Her eyebrow lifted even higher and she stayed where she was for a moment before letting the door swing shut behind her and entering the lounge. She paused at the counter and poured her own cup before lowering herself next to Derek and sighing as she grabbed a sugar packet from the pile in the middle of the table. "Any updates?" she asked as she tore the packet open and emptied its contents into her cup.

Derek nodded. "Still in surgery. Craniotomy's done, laparotomy's in progress." He glanced at her. "Fetal heart rate's steady."

She nodded. "Good news."

Derek raised his cup to his lips. "Yeah." He took a sip of the drink and sighed, returning the cup to the table and glancing at Miranda. "So… how's life as a surgical resident?"

She snorted. "Like you don't remember."

He laughed, surprising himself. "True." His mind flashed back to the time when he had been her teacher, and had watched her run rings around the other interns. He remembered his colleagues – one in particular – being jealous that he had managed to snag the best intern they had seen in years.

"Wasn't Preston working at this hospital?"

Miranda nodded as she swallowed a mouthful of coffee. "He was. Until Richard Webber offered him a position as the chief cardiothoracic surgeon out in Seattle."

Derek raised an eyebrow. "Really?" He turned his cup around in his hands. "Hm. I always had him pegged as a private practice kind of guy."

Miranda snorted. "And give up the opportunity to saunter through hospital hallways like he owns the place? I don't think so."  
Derek laughed; he and his colleague had been friends, but they had been competitive. "True."

Miranda was lifting the cup back to her lips as her pager went off. She sighed and muttered under her breath as the door swung open and the intern they had met upon their arrival – Dr. Yang – appeared in the doorway. "Dr. Bailey, there's a multiple-GSW to the upper-left quadrant approaching… about two minutes out." She paused. "If it's surgical…"

"I'm on my way, Yang," Miranda barked, and sighed as the door swung shut. "Interns," she said, taking one last sip of her coffee before rising from the table and tipping the rest of its contents down the sink. "Thinking they know everything, always wanting to cut…" She shook her head, and Derek smirked.

"Yeah. Annoying, isn't it?" Miranda glanced and him and his smirk was enhanced by a quirked eyebrow. "I had a few of those, myself."

She laughed despite herself and nodded. "True." Her smile faded and her eyes met his. "You'll keep me updated?"

The smile on his own face wilted and he nodded. "Definitely."

She mirrored his nod and exited the lounge, the door swinging shut behind her.

"I like her," Mark offered after a moment. "No bullshit. Straight shooter." He nodded and he finished his coffee. "I like her."

Derek nodded. "Me, too." He did like Miranda Bailey. He had liked her when she was his intern, and had liked her when she began her residency, just before he had left the hospital scene to open his practice. But after yesterday's events – after she had been the one to help him find his way back to Addison – he loved her in a way that he would never be able to explain.

With just a phone call, she had plucked him out of a storm of grief and panic and given him a reason to hope. He knew there was no way he could ever thank her, or even explain to her what she had given him, but he also knew that he would feel that gratitude every day for the rest of his life.

---

Derek threw the magazine back on the table and glanced at his watch, just as he noticed a set of blue scrubs from the corner of his eye. He glanced up to see Meredith Grey approaching him, once again wringing her scrub cap in her hands. He wanted to tell her that she was going to need to kick that habit if she were going to be talking to patients' families, but he didn't.

She offered him a smile as she neared, and he felt a weight he hadn't been aware of lift from his chest. "Your wife's out of surgery," she said, drawing to a halt in front of him as he rose from his chair. "Everything went very well, and there was no change to the fetal heart rate." She shrugged. "So it's all good news. We just have to keep an eye on her, but barring any complications…" She shrugged. "The only thing now is waiting for her to wake up. We'll start the 48-hour post-op countdown… if she wakes up before then, her chances for a full recovery are very good."

He took a deep breath as he nodded. He knew all this, and yet, he didn't want to cut her off in case there was something he didn't know. But she nodded, finished with her dialogue. "Can I see her?"

"Sure. She's in the ICU… I'll take you to see her."

As he fell into step behind her, he glanced at his watch: 1:30 p.m. By this time Thursday, Addison needed to be awake.

She had to be awake.

The countdown had begun.

---

_It's a fairytale so tragic  
There's no prince to break the spell  
I don't believe in magic  
But for you I will, for you I will  
If I'm a fool, I'll be a fool  
Darlin' for you  
I'm countin' on a miracle_

_--- _


	9. Somewhere a Clock is Ticking

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the song "Somewhere a Clock is Ticking" by Snow Patrol._

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.**  
**

**A/N: **Yes, I goofed. Clearly, math was never my strong suit. (Or, you know, I skipped that day in kindergarten when we learned the chronological order of days of the week.) Addison will need to wake up by Friday. Not Thursday. Given that her surgery was Wednesday, not Tuesday. (Thanks, Cowboys-and-coffee!)

* * *

**Chapter 9: Somewhere a Clock is Ticking**

"Do you think we should call her parents?"

Derek lifted his focus from Addison's face to glance at Mark, frowning slightly as he weighed his friend's question. Addison's parents were on the west coast, enjoying the end of the summer at their timeshare in Lake Tahoe. He returned his gaze to his wife's face, smooth and expressionless and his frown deepened. Surely, they should know that their daughter was at least alive, if not conscious. He knew that they would want to return to the east coast immediately; idly, he wondered if that were even possible. He hadn't seen a TV or newspaper since he had switched the television off the day before – was it even possible to get into the city? He vaguely recalled one of the newscasters from yesterday saying that all planes had been grounded – were planes even flying yet? He looked up to see Mark staring at him intently, his brow furrowed in question. Derek nodded slowly. "Yeah. We should call them." He made no move to exit the room and, after a moment's hesitation, Mark nodded. "I can do it. Do you have their number?"

Derek reached into the pocket of his jeans and retrieved his cell phone. "They're in my phone book. 'Montgomery cell' is her dad's cell phone; I don't know their number in Tahoe."

Mark nodded. "OK. I'll call them now. Do you want me to… what do you want me to tell them?"

Derek's focus was once again on Addison. "Just tell them she's had surgery and she's in the ICU. Leave out the specifics."

"OK." Mark left the room in search of a working phone and Derek pulled a chair up beside Addison's bed. A nurse approached to check her vitals and he glanced at her. She offered him a smile. "We'll transfer her to a room in a few hours, once we're sure she's stable." Derek nodded, not bothering to tell her that he was a doctor. She smiled again, making a note on the clipboard in her hand and moving away from the bed. Derek reached out and gently reclaimed her hand.

48 hours.

She could do this.

---

"So, her parents are stuck in Tahoe, there are no flights operating anywhere in the U.S., and, of course, driving would take them a minimum of three days." Mark paused and extended Derek's cell phone. "I told them to just hang tight and we'd call them with an update. They're going to keep working on getting a flight as soon as the airlines are up and running again."

Derek nodded, burying his phone back in his pocket. "It's a waiting game."

Mark didn't know if he meant her parents, the airspace, or Addison, so he opted for a simple nod. "Listen, why don't I go back to your place and grab a change of clothes and a toothbrush and stuff… whatever you want, so that you can keep an eye on her?"

Derek nodded again. "Yeah. That would be good." He patted his pocket and frowned. "I don't have my keys."

Mark retrieved them from his own pocket and held them up. "I grabbed them on the way out. You need anything specific?" Derek glanced at Addison. _You mean besides the obvious?_ He said nothing, but shook his head. "OK. Well, I'll be back in a bit."

"Mark?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks."

Mark nodded as he returned the keys to his pocket. "You bet."

---

_47 hours _

"Addie, can you hear me?" Derek sat next to her bedside, his elbows propped on the crisp white sheet next to her unmoving arm. "Addie." He gazed at her bruised face as he fell silent, chewing on the insides of his cheeks as his knee jumped up and down. "It's OK," he said after a moment. "You take all the time you need." He placed a gentle hand on her forearm. "I'm right here."

---

_43 hours _

"Addie, I just wanted to tell you that the baby's OK. So if you're worried about that, you don't need to be. The baby's fine. You just concentrate on you. I'll take care of everything else."

---

_39 hours _

"I like Ben for a boy. Or maybe Sam." He scrunched up his face. "Although I think there might be an actor named Sam Shepherd." He stroked her arm gently. "Andrew? I think we should go with something solid… not one of these trendy names where, in ten years, people will look at our kid and go, '_What _were your parents thinking?'" He paused. "Maya's nice, for a girl. Or maybe Emily." He frowned slightly. "I don't want to name the baby after someone… not for the first name, anyway. I want it to have its own name, its own identity. Sometimes a namesake is too much pressure." He paused. "Although, maybe if it's a boy, we could give him my dad's name as a middle name. I think I'd like that." He paused again and leaned forward slightly. "Although, if you wake up, I'll let you pick the name, and I won't even argue." He gazed at her unresponsive face and sighed.

---

_34 hours _

"Remember our wedding? How it was such a disaster? I mean, it was great, but… you know, kind of a disaster, too. The caterers prepared the wrong dish, the band was late, the minister had the wrong date altogether… remember? It was a nightmare. But Addie… that was the day I knew that this would work. That was the day I knew that you were the woman I would spend forever with, because you laughed. All of this stuff was going wrong, this beautiful wedding that we – well, you – planned was falling apart, and any woman would have been more than justified in losing her cool. But Addie… you laughed. You cracked up, and shrugged, and said, 'Well, as long as I'm a Mrs. by the end of the day, it's all good.'" He swallowed against the lump that had formed in his throat. "That was when I knew. I mean, I thought I knew way before that. I was pretty sure when I got down on one knee that you were the one. But that day… that day just solidified it. Etched it in stone. I knew as soon as I saw you laugh that…" He swallowed again. "That this would have a happy ending." He angled his body forward and whispered the rest into her ear. "Please, Addison. We haven't had our happy ending yet."

---

_31 hours _

"They still haven't found that intern that went missing in D.C.," he said, glancing at the cover of the week-old issue of _People_ that he had snagged from the waiting room. "Chandra Levy. And look—" He held up the magazine cover toward her. "That congressman – Condit – actually gave _People _magazine an interview." He flipped through the periodical and shook his head as he glanced at Addison's stomach. "If it were my daughter, I think I'd kill him myself." He perused the magazine, looking for something interesting to read, and eventually dropped it on the floor beside his chair. Nothing was interesting enough. How could he possibly find something meaningful in a magazine that had been compiled two weeks before the world tilted on its axis?

---

_28 hours _

"Hey, Addie. It's Mark. I sent Derek to the cafeteria to get something to eat. I figured it would do him good to at least walk around another wing of the hospital for a bit." He sunk into the chair Derek had vacated – not without a fight – and leaned forward, propping his elbows on the edge of her bed and folding his arms over each other. "I don't know what to say," he said after a moment. "I should have gone with you to the lobby. I should have been there, and I wasn't. I'm sorry." He bit back the acrid taste of tears and guilt and swallowed as he gazed at her undisturbed face. "Addie, we need you. You have to wake up. Derek needs you and…" He faltered. "And I need you. You and Derek… you're my family. And if something happened to you…" He shook his head. "I wouldn't just be losing you, I'd be losing him, too. Addie, yesterday, before we knew where you were, Derek thought he'd lost you. He thought he'd never see you again, that you were gone. And I've never seen him like that. Never. Not even after his dad… even then. That was nothing compared to yesterday. You know how you always told me that Derek had this side of him… this vulnerable side that nobody knew about, and I gave you a hard time about it and told you you were just idealizing your husband? That Derek was tougher than you gave him credit for? Well, I saw it. Yesterday, Addie, I saw what you meant. He was destroyed. In a split second, without you, he wasn't Derek. He wasn't the guy I thought I knew as well as I know myself. Addie, I can't fix him. I would do anything for him, I'd take care of him, but if you're gone, there is no way I'll ever be able to make things OK again." He swallowed. "Please. We need you."

---

_24 hours _

"Hey… halfway point. No pressure or anything… just wanted to let you know. Since you aren't wearing a watch." Derek cracked his knuckles and twisted his back, sighing as he felt his vertebrae crack and loosen. He glanced at her, wishing she would open her eyes and cringe, the way she always did when he popped and cracked around her. "OK, this may be pathetic, but I'm going to go with bribery." He paused. "A week in the Hamptons. Without me griping about being there. Sound good?" No response. "An afternoon on Fifth Avenue without a spending limit? I'll even go into Bergdorf Goodman and Barney's with you and give you my opinion on everything you try on." Nothing. "As many chick-movies as you could possibly watch – I'll watch them with you. Whatever you want. Even that _Bridget-whoever's-Diary_ one you were talking about." Silence. He leaned forward and rested his chin on the edge of her bed. His last word was a whisper. "Please."

---

_20 hours _

He couldn't watch when they came in to change the dressings on her incisions. He had watched the first time, had wanted to check her stitches, wanted to make sure they had _used _stitches and not staples, but the sight of the cut turned his stomach. If he had had anything in it, he was sure it would have made a reappearance. He was a neurosurgeon. He was a doctor. But seeing that line of stitches on his wife's scalp, knowing that some doctor he didn't really know had cut through layers of her scalp, drilled holes in her skull and lifted it off the dura made him feel physically ill. It was the only time he was by her side that he couldn't speak.

---

_13 hours _

"OK. As soon as you're up and about, we're taking our second honeymoon. I don't care how much it is or how inconvenient it is, we're going. We're going to pick somewhere warm, with stretches of beach and blue sky, and we're going." He paused and absently turned his wedding band around on his finger. "St. Barth's, maybe?" He shrugged. "Or we could just go back to St. Lucia. We certainly liked it for the first honeymoon." He couldn't stop the grin that crawled over his face. "Not that we saw much of anything outside the hotel." The smile lingered on his face for a moment before he sighed. "God, that was amazing. I never wanted to come home. I mean, the island was beautiful, but just… you and me and sun and beach and no work or anything… that was paradise. You in that little Ralph Lauren bikini… now _that _was paradise." He stopped toying with his ring and clasped his hands together like a prayer. "I'll take you anywhere you want. I'll get you as far away from this city as I can. I'll keep you safe, Addie. Just please… please."

---

_9 hours _

"God, you remember our first date? I was thinking about that just a few days ago… I was so nervous. I was shocked you had even agreed to go out with me. I mean, I know you still sometimes feel like the 'band geek,' but you were so far beyond that stage it wasn't even funny. You had no idea how gorgeous you were… if you had, there's no way you would have let me take you out." He shook his head. "I was so nervous. Mark was giving me his typical pointers on 'how to seal the deal' while I was getting ready. I couldn't even imagine having the balls to kiss you goodnight, let alone 'seal the deal.'" He sighed. "When I picked you up and your roommate answered the door, I was convinced you had changed your mind and she was going to kick me to the curb. But then you appeared, and as soon as I saw you, I knew that, if there was any chance I could get you to fall in love with me, I'd marry you." He leaned back in his chair and rested his folded hands across his stomach. "I still can't believe I spilled ice cream on your foot." He chuckled, shaking his head. "That ice cream scooper must have been a rookie… there was no way that glob was staying on top of that cone." He paused, struck by the memory. "Did you know that your roommate told me that I ruined your shoes? At the time you just laughed and said it was no big deal, they were cheap knockoffs… it wasn't until months later that she filled me in on the fact that I had ruined an $800 pair of shoes. But you never said anything… you never even acted annoyed. You just wiped if off and kept going." He sighed. "Just kept on going."

---

_Five hours_

"Did I ever tell you about the day Mark told me he approved? I mean actually approved, and not just 'she's hot, and if you sleep with her I'll think you're the man' approved? It was the first time we went to a Yankee game together… you, me, Mark, and that girl he was dating. Or sleeping with. Whatever. That Saturday game when we went to the park and it was the start of the first Boston/Yanks series of the season. Abbott was pitching for us, and Clemens was on the mound for them. There was some guy behind us… some diehard Red Sox fan, typical obnoxious 'Red Sox Nation' idiot, ranting and raving about how Clemens was a god… and you actually got into a debate with him about Boston's pitching stats." He laughed quietly. "That was it. On the way out of the park, Mark grabbed my arm and goes, 'OK, man. I get it.' Then he sighed and said, 'If you wanna marry her, I guess I could live with it.' And from Mark, that was pretty much the gold star of approval. And then, you were family." He propped his elbows on his shoulders. "Lotsa games left, Addie. And we still have to find a girl for Mark."

---

_Two hours_

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry you have to go through this. I'm so sorry I wasn't there and you went through that alone. Addison… I don't know what it was like. I can't even begin to imagine what it was like. Watching it on TV was horrific enough, I can't even imagine… But you have to tell me. If I could go back and take your place I would, but I can't, so you're just going to have to wake up and tell me all about it. Addie, I'll never understand anything again if you don't wake up and explain it to me."

---

_One hour_

"Please, Addie. Please."

He rocked slightly in the chair, murmuring in a voice Addison probably couldn't have heard if she'd been awake to listen for it.

"Please."

Maybe it wasn't directed toward her anymore, anyway.

"Please."

---

He held his breath as his watch ticked past 1:30. He glanced at Addison. The 48th hour had come and gone. He knew medicine wasn't the exact science they all wanted to believe it was. He knew that it wasn't a bomb – the 48:00 mark wasn't specific.

But he also knew that it had come and gone.

It had come and gone, and Addison looked no different than she had 48 hours ago.

She still looked… still.

---

"It's OK, Addie. It's OK. I know you tried. I know you did. It's OK." Derek thought back to the class on Death and Bereavement he had taken in college, back to the professor's lecture on dying people who hang on for the sake of their loved ones. He didn't try to restrain the tears that slid down his face. "I'm just so thankful I got to see you again. I wish I could have looked into your beautiful eyes again and heard your voice and seen you laugh… but this… I'll take this. I got to see you again, touch you again. And I'm so thankful for that. So it's OK. I know you tried." His voice softened as he leaned toward her and let his head rest gently on the pillow next to hers, his face toward her. He placed a soft kiss on her temple and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of her, the soft smell that even surgery and the hospital environment hadn't washed away. "Thank you for finding your way back to me. Thank you for loving me." Tears dampened the coarse fabric of the hospital pillowcase beneath his head. "Thank you for marrying me. Thank you for making my whole life." He kissed her again and found her hand with his. "I'll love you every second," he whispered. "Tell our baby that I loved it already." He rested his forehead against her temple, tears falling freely from his closed eyes. "I love you." He breathed the words into her hair again and again as he pressed his lips to her head before straightening and turning away, walking through the door of the room without looking back.

---

In the 50th hour, Addison's eyes opened.

_---  
_

_There ain't no storybook story  
There's no never-ending song  
Our happily ever after darlin'  
Forever come and gone  
Sleeping beauty awakens from her dream  
With her lover's kiss on her lips  
Your kiss was taken from me  
Now all I have is this  
I'm countin' on a miracle_

_--- _


	10. We Are Nowhere and It's Now

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the song "We Are Nowhere and It's Now" by Bright Eyes._

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.

* * *

**Chapter 10: We Are Nowhere and It's Now**

He tried to breathe. His heart hammered in his chest and every inhalation got tangled in his throat as he tried to force the air into his lungs. He hadn't wanted to cry beside her bed. Although there was nothing in modern medicine that said that she could hear him, he didn't want to cry next to her.

He was going to have to say goodbye to her eventually – much sooner than he had ever imagined – and before he could do it, he needed a minute. He needed a minute to school himself into some semblance of the doctor he was, so that he could accept the fact that, if it came to it, he would have to give the OK for someone to turn off the machines that were helping her breathe.

He needed a minute.

"Dr. Shepherd?"

Derek's red-rimmed eyes lifted from where they had been glued to the carpet of the waiting room floor. He could feel Mark's hand squeeze his shoulder, where it had been resting since Derek had sunk into the waiting room chair next to him. He tried to even out his breathing, but he couldn't remember what a normal breathing pattern felt like. He couldn't remember what it was like to breathe without the weight that had settled on his chest. "Yes." The word sounded strangled, like someone had a hold of his windpipe. He cleared his throat as he rubbed his eyes and dragged his hands down his face, looking at the doctor standing before him. "Dr. Grey."

She nodded and offered him a soft smile. "Yeah. I just wanted to let you know… we removed your wife's ET tube and—" She paused and flinched as Derek rose from his chair so quickly that it startled her.

"What? On whose orders? I didn't approve that." He glanced at Mark, desperation rising in his chest. Mark rose beside him and squared his shoulders at Meredith, his own anger rising in his throat.

"What, you don't consult family members before removing life support? What the hell kind of hospital is this?"

Meredith frowned as her eyes darted from one man to the other. "Um, I'm sorry but—"

"Sorry." Derek repeated the word, choked it out as he sunk back into the chair behind him. He shook his head, staring at Meredith. "You didn't even ask…" He trailed off and Meredith's frown deepened.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "But your wife's awake."

He felt his body go rigid as his eyes widened. "What?"

"She's—"

But she was cut off again, this time as Derek pushed past her and raced back to Addison's room.

---

"Addie." It was a prayer, a blessing, a salvation.

She offered him a small smile but winced slightly as she did so. She closed her eyes and licked her lips and he was beside her before she could open her mouth to say his name. He smiled down at her, touching her cheek gently. "You were intubated… you don't have to talk."

She shook her head slightly as she opened her eyes and gazed up at him. "Derek." It was barely audible, raspy, and sounded nothing like her normal voice, but he found himself grasping it, running it over all of the wounds he had suffered in the past three days like it was a balm. He couldn't help the smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth – stubborn, even now. He had never been so grateful for her stubbornness.

"Addie," he said again, his voice a whisper. She raised her thumb to his cheek and gently wiped the track of tears away. He shook his head slightly and lowered his forehead to hers, letting his eyes fall closed. He breathed her in, relishing in the feel of the soft breaths that fell from her lips before straightening again, smiling slightly when he saw the tears that had fallen from his eyes onto her cheeks.

He wiped them gently away and gazed into her eyes – the clear blue that looked remarkably like a blue sky he had once known.

---

"I'm pretty sure we owe you an apology." Meredith Grey flipped the chart she had been studying closed and turned from the counter to face the man before her. He extended a hand. "Mark Sloane. I'm Dr. Shepherd's friend. I don't think we were formally introduced."

She nodded and accepted the proffered handshake. "Meredith Grey."

He nodded in return and released her hand. "Sorry about earlier. You know how doctors are… they make the worst patients, but they make even worse family members of patients."

She smiled slightly and nodded again. "It's OK. No hard feelings. I didn't realize he wasn't aware…" She trailed off and shrugged. "Well anyway."

Mark sighed. "So how's she doing?"

Meredith hugged the chart to her chest and nodded her head, the encouraging nod of a doctor trying to give a family member hope, before she seemed to catch herself. "You're a doctor, too."

"Yeah."

She nodded. "She's doing well. Minor headache, which is, of course, to be expected. Pupils look fine, and she was able to answer all of the simple post-op questions we asked her, so the outlook is really good."

Mark released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding and Meredith's professional countenance softened slightly. "She should be fine. How's _he _doing?"

"He's doing OK," Mark replied, grateful beyond words that his words were true. "Much better now."

"That's good. Well, as long as she remains stable for the next day or so, I don't see why we couldn't release her, given his background and… well, everything."

"OK. OK, yeah. That'd be good."

She nodded again. "OK. Well… let me know if you need anything else."

"OK. Thanks."

"Sure."

---

"What day is it?" Addison frowned slightly at the headache that lurked behind her eyes.

"Friday," Derek said after a moment.

Her frown deepened at his answer. "Friday?"

"Yeah." His voice was soft as he stroked her arm gently.

"But—" Lines formed in her forehead as she tried to fit puzzle pieces together – pieces that just wouldn't fit, no matter which way she turned them. "Friday?"

"It's OK," he offered after a moment. "Don't force it. It'll come. You've been out since Tuesday."

"Out?"

"Yeah." He tried possible explanations out in his mind. He didn't want to supply details for her when he didn't know what she remembered and what she didn't. Maybe they would be lucky enough that she wouldn't remember much of anything, and she could relearn it all the way he would have to – on TV, in the newspaper, on the radio. Maybe they would be saved the horror of her first-hand memories.

"What happened?"

"You had a closed head injury," he said after a moment, opting for the answer he could give. The medical answer. "And an abdominal bleed. They repaired both of them, and you're going to be fine. You're recovering already."

"Head injury?" The fragments of her short-term memory floated in her mind, and she tried to solidify them into something she could decipher. She remembered breakfast with Derek – that had been over three days ago? She remembered rushing to meet Mark, and the conference… had she made it to the conference? She couldn't remember. She remembered being at the World Trade Center… or, at least, she thought she did. How on earth had she managed to get internal injuries at a medical conference in a skyscraper? She nodded slightly, giving up trying to remember as her headache lingered. At least she knew now the source of the pain, but still… it sucked.

"You're OK." She nodded again and offered him a small smile. She stared at his face, noticing the details for the first time since he had barreled into her room. His hair was all over the place, and it looked like he hadn't shaved in – well, days. There were pockets of puffiness beneath his red-rimmed eyes, and his face looked drawn. But his eyes still held the small light that always warmed her from the inside out, and there was a small smile on his face.

He interrupted her scrutiny. "What?"

She frowned. "Huh?"

"You were staring at me."

Her forehead smoothed as her frown disappeared and she offered him a small smile. "Yeah, well, you were staring at me."

He opened his mouth to speak when suddenly the smile died on her lips and her eyes widened as if she had been hit by a freight train of panic. "Addie?" The word had barely left his mouth when he felt her arm move and saw her place it on her stomach, and the sudden alarm that had filled his throat dissipated. "It's OK," he assured her. "The baby's OK. They monitored the heart rate through your surgeries…" He forced a reassuring smile onto his face. "Feisty like its mother."

The panic on her face gave way to relief as she sunk back into her pillows, the sudden surge of emotion draining what little energy she had. Her hand stayed on her stomach and Derek placed his over top of hers, caressing it gently with his thumb. "You're both fine. We're all going to be fine."

She nodded and allowed her eyes to slip closed, capturing his hand in hers as she did.

He sighed and lowered himself back into the chair that had become his new home, watching her peaceful face and gently rubbing her hand with his thumb where their hands lay joined above their unborn child. He said a silent prayer that his promise to her had been true: that somehow, despite what the world had insinuated, they would be OK.

---

"Hey man."

"Hey." Derek turned toward the doorway, where Mark hovered, his hands in his pockets. He had never felt more useless than he had in the past 72 hours, and he had never felt more removed from their party of three than he had for the past six. Derek nodded toward the chair next to him and Mark accepted the unspoken offer, lowering himself to sit beside his friend.

"How's she doing?"

"Good." Derek glanced at his wife before leaning back into his chair and running his hand through his hair. "Looks good."

"Good." Mark fiddled with the strap of his watch as he stared at Addison's sleeping form. "God." He shook his head.

"Yeah," Derek replied, mirroring his friend's head-shake. Four days, and their world was almost unrecognizable. He didn't even want to think about the foreignness of the world beyond the hospital walls.

They lapsed back into silence as they both stared at Addison, streams of questions running through their minds.

Mark turned when he heard Derek's breath hitch and he observed the tears rolling unchecked down his friend's cheeks. "Hey, man. She's OK. They're both OK."

Derek nodded. "I know." He nodded again and then shook his head, the contradiction of the actions not lost on him. "I know," he said again. "I just…" He faltered and swiped half-heartedly at his eyes. He was crying. Again. And this time, he didn't know why.

He had cried more than he cared to remember in the hours preceding Addison's waking up, but each and every one of those tears he had attributed to the fact that he was very possibly losing his wife.

But here he was, sitting next to his living, breathing, conscious wife, and the tears were still coming.

They weren't tears of sadness – he had no place to be sad, when all of his desperately uttered prayers of the past four days had been unequivocally answered.

They weren't tears of joy – the reality of the world left little room for joy, outside of his own selfish elation at his wife's survival.

He suspected, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he was simply crying to let it all out. He cried for the grief of the past four days, of the emotional roller coaster that had taken more out of him than anything in his life ever had. He cried for the small twinge of guilt he felt when he imagined all of the people who hadn't been given the chance to awaken from the nightmare he had lived for a far briefer time than they would. He cried for the city he remembered before Tuesday, for the city he had loved, and the city it would inevitably become. He cried for the country that had been targeted for reasons that none of them understood. He cried for the people who would never be sitting where he was – next to the bed of the person he thought he'd lost. But, probably most of all, he cried because he _was _there. Because he had been knocked down, Addison had been knocked down, Mark had been knocked down – and they would all, eventually, stand up again.

He cried because he knew that somehow, despite what had been knocked down, the rest of the country would do the same.

He cried because he had no idea how long that would take.

---

"OK, Dr. Shepherd. Everything looks fine, so if you're feeling comfortable and don't have any objections, we would be willing to release you into your husband's care as early as tomorrow."

Addison squinted as she watched Meredith smile down at her, clicking her pen closed and tucking the chart under her arm. "Tomorrow?"

Meredith nodded. "If you're comfortable with that, we don't see a reason why we couldn't discharge you." Addison nodded but a small frown graced her features. Meredith noticed her expression and her own brow furrowed slightly. "Is everything all right? Are you feeling OK?"

"Oh. Yeah." Addison attempted to make her expression more neutral, but worry still tinged her features. "It's just… strange. That I don't remember…" She trailed off and Meredith nodded.

"That's fairly normal," she assured her.

"I know. I know it is. It's just… weird to be on this side of the equation, I guess."

Meredith offered a sympathetic nod. "Yeah. That's understandable." She tapped the chart with her index finger as she gazed at the older woman for a moment. "Do you want me to run through the post-op discharge spiel, or would you rather hear it from your husband?"

Addison forced herself to smile around her anxiety. "You're an intern, right?" Meredith nodded. "Then you do it. Practice makes perfect, and Derek… he's had enough practice."

Meredith smiled and nodded. "OK. Well, we're sending you home with a scrip for some meds, so make sure you take them all. There may be a slight depression in your skull where the bone flap was removed, which is completely normal. The wound may ache for a few days, and you'll probably notice some itching as the skin heals. Headaches aren't uncommon for the first two weeks or so, but if they persist past that point or increase in severity, go ahead and just get checked out. Fatigue is also very common after brain surgery, so take naps as needed." She paused and bit her lip. "Um… that's about it."

Addison nodded. "Nicely done."

Meredith laughed. "Thanks. OK. Well… any other questions? For me, or I can have Dr. Reither come in."

Addison shook her head. "Nope, I think you about covered it."

"OK. Well then… good luck, Dr. Shepherd."

"Thank you," Addison offered, smiling after the intern as she left the room. It brought back memories of when she had done her internship; at first meeting, Meredith Grey reminded Addison slightly of herself back then – far more insecure about her abilities than she needed to be.

"I hear you're being released into my care." She turned to see Derek hovering in the doorway, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Yep. That's what I hear, too."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Been awhile since we played doctor."

She smiled despite her sudden exhaustion and allowed her head to fall back onto the pillow. "Yeah."

His smile faded and his brow furrowed. "You OK?"

"Yeah," she said again. "I just…" She picked at the hem of the sheet and sighed. "I still can't remember. How I got here… What happened." She turned her focus from the sheet to his face. "What happened to me, Derek? I remember getting to the building and heading up for coffee, but going back to the lobby to make a phone call, but that's it. I can't—everything after that is just… gone. How did I go from phone call to brain surgery, from Tuesday to Friday, with nothing in between?"

"Addie, it—"

"Please. Don't say 'it'll come.' I just… it's making it harder. The more I try to remember, the more it feels like it's slipping away, but I can't _not _try to remember it." She licked her chapped lips. "Please. Just tell me." She frowned at the hesitation on his face. "Derek, believe me, it can't be any worse that what I've been imagining."

He swallowed. "But it is," he said softly. "It is worse." He could see from her expression that he'd startled her; he tried to come up with a way to ease her into it. "Do you remember Alan?"

She frowned. "Alan?"

He nodded. "Alan helped you down the stairs."

"Stairs?" Her frown deepened. "Did something happen to the elevator?"

Derek sighed and sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand gently in his. "Sort of." He glanced at her; her face was expectant, waiting for him to continue. "Something happened to the building, Addison." He rubbed her hand and sighed, trying to construct the sentence in his mind before he spoke it.

At his hesitation, she swallowed. "Was it… a bomb?"

He glanced at her. "Not a bomb." He continued stroking her hand as he inhaled deeply. "A plane." He checked her face; it was devoid of shock, but filled with confusion.

"A plane?"

"A plane," he repeated. He could see that it still wasn't sinking in, and he sighed, adjusting himself on the edge of her bed. _Just rip the band-aid off,_ he told himself. _One quick motion. _"Addie, a group of terrorists flew a pair of planes into the Trade Center towers… and they collapsed." She blinked. He stared at her, waiting for a reaction. She shook her head slightly, as if attempting to make her jumbled thoughts settle.

"Collapsed." She breathed the word and he nodded. "And I was inside of them."

"You were just inside the lobby when the other tower went down," he said softly. "You… got away before the one you were in fell."

"Fell."

"Yeah." He watched her face for signs of alarm, panic, despair… any indication that his words had triggered a memory of her own, but all he saw was bewilderment.

"I—" She shook her head and he waited for her to find the words. "But that's absurd." Her voice was barely a whisper.

"Yeah." He continued caressing her hand with his, as if he could somehow rub the truth away from its surface. She shook her head again and her puzzlement yielded to a deep frown as her eyes darkened. She dragged her eyes up to meet his and she sighed. "Take me home, Derek."

---

_She felt the arm of the man supporting her as her vision cleared. "Derek?"_

"_I'm Alan," came a voice she didn't recognize. "Don't worry, you're going to be OK. We just need to get downstairs and get that cut checked, OK?"_

_She attempted to straighten, to stop leaning on the arm of this stranger, but found that the effort made her head swim. She submitted to leaning on his arm as he guided her through the smoky stairwell. "It's smoky," she murmured, watching her heel-clad feet descend, one stair at a time._

"_Yeah."_

_They descended in silence for a few moments before she licked her lips. "Thirsty."_

"_As soon as we get down, we'll get you some water, OK?" _

_She glanced at the man and frowned. Mark. Where was Mark? Had he left her behind? _

_She looked around them, at the double-file line, trying to search out his face, but found that the survey of the people around them only made the dizziness worse. _

_She heard a radio crackle nearby, though she couldn't locate the source. "Yeah, we're in staircase B, Tower 1," came a voice. "51st floor, heading down. We have two people with medical emergencies, elderly people, they can't come down."_

_A static-filled voice came back over the speaker. "Tower 1, staircase B. That's a copy."_

_Addison tried to peer through the smoke-filled commotion. She was a doctor. She could help. But she still couldn't stand upright, and the smoke and throngs of people made locating the voice too difficult. _

_She continued her descent, her head seeming to clear gradually as they made their way toward the base of the tower. She heard a faint voice from somewhere a few floors up singing a hymn and the woman in front of them was working a string of rosary beads. _

_Her head swam and smoke filled her lungs with each breath. She could hear the man beside her – Alan – breathing heavily, and she made an effort to straighten somewhat, so that he was supporting less of her weight. Her head was clearing slightly and she focused on keeping the pace set by the crowd. She could hear the faint sound of crying from somewhere behind them and she swallowed._

_They descended._

_And descended._

_She wondered idly if they were truly headed for the lobby, or if they were climbing all the way into hell._

_She pressed her body closer to Alan's as the double-file line collapsed into single file and a troop of firefighters in helmets pushed past them, carrying gear that must have weighed fifty pounds. "God bless," she heard the woman with the rosary beads say as they passed, and she frowned. Should she be saying a prayer right now? She hadn't been inside a church since Derek's niece's christening – she hadn't said a prayer in far longer. _

_Derek._

_Suddenly, her chest ached as she looked around, desperate for Mark's face. But all she saw were the faces of strangers. _

_She wanted Derek._

_And if she couldn't have Derek, she wanted the closest thing._

_But not a single thing around her was familiar._

_Her lungs were burning, but she couldn't tell if it was because of the smoke or the physical exertion of their descent. She could feel her stomach churning and she placed a hand over it, willing it to settle._

_It felt like hours._

_Suddenly, the dim smokiness of the stairwell gave way to bright sunlight as they followed the crowd out of the stairwell and into the lobby of the tower. She frowned as she surveyed the chaos of the lobby she had been in what felt like hours ago to make a phone call. She allowed Alan to lead her toward the exit, thankful that her head had cleared enough that her hand on his forearm was merely for guidance, and not for support. They approached one of the doors that led out onto the plaza, and a firefighter glanced at them. _

"_Be careful," he said, gesturing toward the sky they couldn't see from inside the building. "Things are falling, so be alert."_

_Falling? She frowned as she saw Alan nod from the corner of her eye. They hovered in the doorway when she heard a whimpering coming from somewhere to the right of the entrance. She craned her neck to locate the source, and saw a woman huddled near the building. She released Alan's arm and took a step toward the figure when she heard a noise like she had never heard before. A combination of crashing, splitting, screaming, tumbling. The sound of the earth splitting open. She turned just in time to see a wall of white dust hurtling toward her, and her world went dark._

"Addie." The cold edge of panic gripped Derek's voice as he shook her gently, one hand on her cheek. "Addie, wake up." She bolted upright, immediately sorry as her head swam and a searing shot of pain forced her eyes closed. "Addie." She identified the note of alarm in his voice and her eyes cracked open. She swallowed, releasing the tent of fabric she had clutched in a white-knuckle grip. Her favorite Egyptian cotton sheets.

"Where were you?"

He felt his chest tighten and a lump rose in his throat. He had pictured her asking this question when she had woken up without him next to her. "I had just stepped outside for a second. Addie, I'd been next to you for 48 hours, and they said after the 48th hour…" He was cut off by her shaking her head.

"In the stairs. I couldn't find you."

Realization dawned as he fitted the pieces together and realized that, despite his hopes that she might never remember, her subconscious had provided her with the missing puzzle pieces. "Oh, Addie." He looped his arms around her, her damp cheek resting against his bare chest and he sighed. "I'm sorry." _For not being there. For you being there. For everything. _He rested his chin on the crown of her head, careful to avoid the covering that shielded her line of stitches and sighed again. "It'll be OK."

He was thankful that, for once, she didn't call his bluff.

---

_Did you stand there in shock at the site of  
That black smoke rising against that blue sky  
Did you shout out in anger  
In fear for your neighbor  
Or did you just sit down and cry  
Did you weep for the children  
Who lost their dear loved ones  
And pray for the ones who don't know  
Did you rejoice for the people who walked from the rubble  
And sob for the ones left below_

_--- _


	11. You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the song "You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget" by Ynqwie Malmsteen._

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.

* * *

**Chapter 11: You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget**

Derek cracked an eye and glanced at the red numbers on his bedside alarm clock: 7:30. He rubbed a hand over his face and rolled to face Addison – but all he was faced with was the indentation in the pillow where her head had rested. He sat up in their bed, a bubble of worry rising in his throat. He swallowed against it and glanced at the bathroom door, which was barely ajar. He kicked back the covers and rose from the bed, shivering slightly as his bare feet came in contact with the hard wood of their bedroom floor. "Addie?" He approached the bathroom door, straining to listen for any noise from behind the door, or from any other part of their home. He paused outside the door and tapped on it gently with the knuckle of his index finger. "Addie?" Nothing. He slowly pushed the door open and peered into the bathroom. Empty. He frowned and walked to the chair near his side of the bed, stepping into the sweatpants he had discarded the night before and then retrieving a plain white t-shirt from the second drawer in the bureau. He ran a hand through his hair as he exited the bedroom and descended the wooden stairs, thankful for the thin runner of carpet they had covered them with. He should have grabbed socks. "Addie?" He frowned as he glanced into the empty den, but paused when he heard noise coming from the kitchen. He walked through and sighed when he saw Addison's red head bent over the kitchen table. The small television set on the counter was on, and was turned to CNN. His eyebrow jumped slightly; Addison never watched the news. "Addie?" As he neared, he registered what she was reading: a newspaper. He glanced at the tabletop and audibly sucked in a breath – she was surrounded by newspapers and magazines, all with similar cover images.

_Newsday_ was hanging off the corner of the table with its headline: "The Last Roll Call: NYC Firefighters Bury First Three of Their Fallen Comrades." He frowned as his eyes roamed over the table; its surface wasn't even visible beneath the pile of periodicals.

The _Daily News_: "We're At War" with a photo of Bush, Cheney and Colin Powell.

The _New York Post_: "WAR" in big, black block letters.

_The New Yorker_: A plain black cover with "September 11, 2001" written up the left-hand side in red ink.

_Time_: An image of the second plane's impact, looking remarkably like a pyrotechnics display.

_Newsweek_: The now-famous image of firefighters erecting a flag amid the rubble, with "God Bless America" as its headline.

_People_: an yellow-orange sky and a silhouette image of the towers with smoke pouring out of one and the second plane about to hit; "September 11, 2001: The Day that Shook America" across the bottom in yellow.

"Addie," he said again, a ball of worry settling in the pit of his stomach.

She turned to face him. "Hey."

"Hey." He lowered himself into the chair across from her and tried not to frown as he surveyed the newspapers and magazines that covered the tabletop. "You didn't wake me."

"Yeah. You were in such a good sleep… I figured it was probably the first one you've had in a few days." She glanced at him, and he was struck by how nervous she seemed. "Sorry about last night. Waking you up."

"Addie." He shook his head, the gesture implying that her apology was unnecessary. He glanced once again at the table. "You OK?"

She nodded. "Yeah." She seemed to realize the peculiarity of their situation and gestured at the collection of periodicals before them. "I went to the newsstand." He nodded but said nothing, and she pointed to a stack he hadn't noticed on the chair beside her. "These are all from the day right after… I took them out of the recycling."

His eyebrows jumped before he could check them and he glanced at the clearly second-hand stack of papers. He lifted them and flipped through them; she had only bothered to salvage the main sections, and the front-page headlines from the day after the attacks screamed at him.

_Newsday_: "Acts of Mass Murder" with the second plane about to hit the South Tower.

_Daily News_: "It's War" in red block letters with another image of the plane about to hit the second tower.

_Washington Post_: "Terrorists Hijack 4 Airliners, Destroy World Trade Center, Hit Pentagon; Hundreds Dead."

_USA Today_: "Act of War" across an image of the fireball from second plane's impact.

_New York Times_: "U.S. Attacked: Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers and Hit Pentagon in Day of Terror."

He glanced up at his wife once again, but her focus was back on whatever periodical lay open in front of her. He sighed and ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "Coffee?"

"Sure." She didn't look up.

He rose from the table and walked to the counter, turning on the coffeemaker and glancing at the TV. The CNN ticker ran across the bottom of the screen. _Vice President Cheney warns that those who harbor terrorist face "the full wrath of the United States." … Pakistani official says senior delegation sent to Afghanistan to deliver U.S. message: hand over Osama Bin Laden or risk massive assault._ He grabbed the remote from the marble countertop. "It OK if I change this?" he asked, glancing at Addison's hunched form.

"Mmhmm."

He flipped the channel, inhaling deeply as the scent of brewing coffee permeated the air. Decaf really was a cruel trick; he wondered how he would make it through the next seven months. He was trying to be supportive, and had been pretending like the switch to decaf was no big deal, but the truth was – he could really use a good caffeine fix. He flipped the channel to ESPN and tossed the remote back onto the counter, leaning against it as the familiar refrain of SportsCenter came from the speakers.

He could feel the tension bleeding slowly from his muscles; waking to find her missing had sent him into a spin that surprised even him. It had been all too reminiscent of the morning after the attacks, when he had woken up alone and believed it to be how he would wake up every day for the rest of his life. That, combined with her somewhat delicate physical state and her undoubtedly tenuous emotional state, had combined to push him right back into panic mode. And, despite the fact that he had been virtually despondent not days earlier, he was determined that she wouldn't learn just how destroyed he had been. She had gotten a glimpse of it the night before, when she'd entered their bedroom to find a pile of her clothes, rumpled and mixed in with the bedclothes. He had been forced to confess that he had slept in them, and to explain why. The pain in her eyes at his admission had tied him in knots, and he didn't want to delve any further into it.

Just as the sportscasters were discussing the resuming of the Major League Baseball season, someone rang the bell to the brownstone. He glanced at Addison, who was engrossed in her reading and headed out of the kitchen to answer the door.

He could see a familiar silhouette through the frosted double doors.

"Hey," he said as he swung the door open.

"Hey," Mark replied, lifting a tray with three Venti Starbucks cups. "I come bearing breakfast." He raised his other hand, which clutched a paper bag – its telltale bulge hinted at muffins. Derek smiled and stepped back, opening the door wide enough for Mark to step into the foyer. "How is she?" he asked, his voice an octave lower.

Derek was silent for a moment before he shrugged. "I really don't know. She…" He trailed off and inclined his head slightly in the direction of the kitchen. "She's in the kitchen." He led the way after carefully extricating the cardboard coffee tray from his friend's hands.

"Apparently Mark's psychic," Derek said as he re-entered the kitchen. Addison glanced up from the newspaper spread out in front of her and her eyes fell on the tray in his hands and then traveled up to Mark's face. She rose slowly from the chair and stepped toward him, enveloping him in a hug. He hugged her back, breathing in deeply as he squeezed her, hard enough to reassure himself that she was OK, but gently enough that she could tell he thought she was breakable. She stepped back and smiled up at him. "I didn't really get a chance to hug you at the hospital."

He nodded and extended the paper bag toward her. "Breakfast."

She nodded in return and glanced at the healing cut on his forehead. "You're OK." It was a question, even if it didn't sound like one.

"I'm OK," he replied, still extending the paper bag.

She nodded again, offering a small smile as she grabbed the bag. "Tell me you got a blueberry."

He quirked an eyebrow and grinned. "Don't I always look out for you?" Almost as suddenly as it had appeared, his smile vanished and a frown took over his features.

Addison glanced up at him and paused in her perusal of the bag's contents. She mirrored his frown. "Mark?"

He shook his head and glanced at the table. "Whoa."

For the first time since Derek had discovered her at the table, Addison looked flustered. "I, um. I wanted to catch up." She faltered and glanced back at him, and then to Derek, who had placed the tray on the counter and was lifting the coffee cups out of it.

He glanced at his wife and forced a reassuring smile to his face. She relaxed slightly as he raised one of the cups and glanced at which boxes were checked on the side of it. "Decaf for the lady." He extended the cup toward her and she accepted it, lowering herself once more to the table and taking a sip as she resumed reading. Mark glanced at her and then faced Derek, who gave an almost imperceptible head-shake as he extended a second cup. "Bone-dry cappuccino, I'm guessing."

"You got it." Mark accepted the cup and leaned against the counter next to his friend, glancing at the TV. "You see they're gonna start the season back up tomorrow?"

Derek nodded, hissing as the hot coffee slid down his throat. "Yeah." He took another sip, trying to come up with a response. He fell silent as he realized he had none. Normal conversation just didn't feel anything like normal.

Mark lowered his voice another octave. "I, uh, still have the tickets for the Devil Rays game. I totally understand if you don't want to go. Or if Addie doesn't. But if you do, or if you think it would be good, we can go. Just let me know."

Derek nodded and glanced at his wife's back. "Maybe. We'll see how she does." Mark nodded and took a sip from his own cup as the two men watched Addison's form hunched over the paper.

He gestured toward one of the newspapers that hung over the edge of the table, its declaration of war readable from where they stood. "This thing'll be over by Christmas. Mark my words."

---

"I think I want to go to church."

Derek and Mark looked up from the television. They had migrated from the kitchen to the couch, although ESPN was still the channel of choice, and Addison had emerged from the kitchen after three hours of nearly uninterrupted reading. Derek frowned slightly as he watched his wife standing in the doorway between kitchen and living room. "Church?" He tried to remember the last time he and Addison had even been in a church; he was pretty sure it had been a christening. They certainly hadn't been to a normal church service in years.

"Yeah." She shrugged, almost apologetic. "You don't have to come. I'm not even sure why I'm going. I just… want to go."

Derek nodded and rose from the couch. "OK. I'll come."

"Me too." Mark rose behind him and glanced down at himself. "I'll, uh, have to go home and change though."

"Pick you up on the way," Derek said, and Mark nodded as he exited the brownstone. He glanced at Addison once more. "You OK?"

"I'm fine," she said. "I'm gonna jump in the shower."

"Addie."

"I'm fine, Derek. Honestly." She offered him a strained smile before turning and climbing the stairs.

---

Derek gazed at Addison as she slid the post of an earring through the hole in her earlobe. He sat at the foot of their bed in his suit, his tie hanging open around his neck, and she glanced at him in the mirror's reflection and offered a small smile. "I'm almost ready."

"Take your time," he replied, returning her smile and watching her as she switched to the other ear. "You look beautiful," he said after a moment. She snorted and her hand went instinctively to the row of stitches at her hairline. The gesture wasn't lost on him and he rose from the bed, moving to stand behind her and wrapping his arms around her, his hands resting on her stomach and his chin on her shoulder. They gazed at their reflection in the mirror over the bureau and she met his eyes in the glass. He stared at her for a moment longer before breaking the eye contact and burying his face in her neck, inhaling the scent of her shampoo. After a few moments, her voice broke the silence.

"Derek."

"Mm." He made no move to lift his face from where it hid.

"Derek," she said again, her voice inquisitive. He took a deep breath and once again met her eyes in the glass; this time, she recognized the look in the clear blue depths. She turned in his embrace and stared into his eyes directly, looping her hands around his neck. "Hey." Her voice was gentle. "I'm OK." The words were his undoing, and he could feel the bubble of tears threatening at the back of his throat.

"Yeah."

She noted the way he held her – usually, he draped his hands lazily around her waist. This time, his hands were locked together tightly around her back, and she guessed that she wouldn't be able to pull away even if she wanted to. She raised a hand to his cheek and gently rubbed her thumb over his cheekbone, sighing as his eyes fell clothes and he angled into her touch. She felt a sudden pang in her chest as she found herself picturing what the past few days must have been like for him. She tried to put herself in his place, to imagine how desperate and frantic she would have been if it had been him, but she found it literally impossible to put herself in his shoes. She knew he felt guilty that he hadn't been through what she had – his words of comfort after her nightmare told her as much – but she almost felt like she may have gotten the easier side of the deal. True, she had experienced something horrific. But she had known that she was alive. She had known that she had a chance at survival. And, even more importantly, she had known that he was nowhere near the danger. He, on the other hand, hadn't had any idea if she was alive or not. He didn't know if she was in the impact zone, obliterated by an airliner, or crushed beneath a pile of debris. For what she suspected were too many hours, his mind had been providing him with countless horrible scenarios, and he had been forced to believe that any one of them might have been a reality. If she were to be honest, she thought that perhaps she had gotten the easier side of the equation. The way he was holding her suggested she was right.

He heaved a sigh and his clear blue eyes opened once again and met hers. "Ready?" His voice was soft and she felt his hands unlock and rub her lower back gently.

"Yeah." She raised herself on her toes and kissed his lips gently, sighing as they parted and he placed his forehead against hers. They stood like that for a moment before he heaved a sigh and pulled back.

"Let's go."

---

"Hey."

"Hey," Mark replied as he slid into the back seat of the cab. He pecked Addison on the cheek and draped his suit jacket over his knee as he slammed the door of the car closed.

"OK," Derek said to the driver. He kneaded Addison's hand in his as they rejoined the flow of traffic and headed toward the church. He noted without comment that all three of them had opted for black; Mark wore a black suit with a white collared shirt underneath, minus a tie, Addison wore a black wrap dress, and he wore a black suit with a white shirt and black tie. He suspected that a large portion of the congregation would be dressed similarly.

They rode in silence for the six blocks it took to get them to the church and Derek paid the driver as Mark and Addison slid out of the cab and onto the curb. He slammed the door shut behind him and reclaimed Addison's hand as they followed Mark toward the church doors. He rubbed her hand with his thumb and glanced sideways at her. "You OK?"

She nodded without looking at him and removed her dark sunglasses as they stepped inside the dark lobby of the church. They each accepted a program from the elderly man handing them out, and a small woman beside him held out a basket toward them. Derek frowned as he reached in and retrieved what was proffered, until he realized what it was: a small American flag pin. "Thank you," he replied to the woman as he followed Addison and Mark into a pew near the back of the church. He sank onto the wooden seat and unbuttoned his jacket button as Addison hid her purse beneath the pew. He watched as she affixed the pin to the left side of her dress, just over her heart. He followed suit, attaching his own to his left lapel and once again reclaiming her hand. This time she met his eyes and offered him a small smile just as the opening chords of a hymn cut through the air.

---

"Good morning." The minister was a different one; not surprising, given their prolonged absence from regular services. Addison focused on his words as Derek continued to rub her hand with his thumb. "Most of us this morning are still in a state of shock, and I fear that this will continue for quite some time. We are in shock not only due to the political and economical consequences of what happened last Tuesday, but because of the personal connections as well as the magnitude of evil with which we were faced. We have been faced with an act of brutal, unambiguous evil: an act of destruction and murder fueled by hatred. Not only that, but those destroyers destroyed not only others, but themselves. They were driven to destroy as much as possible – the pure definition of evil.

"Evil inevitably results in a wound. And we, all of us, are wounded. New Yorkers. Americans. People of faith – all faiths. We are all wounded. We are wounded and shocked, not simply because of the evilness of these terrible acts, but because evil is personal. It was personal, and yet so impersonal. Nobody was a target, and yet everybody was a victim. Evil does not discriminate, and for that reason, there are far more victims than we can possibly fathom.

"And now, there is a manhunt going on. That is to be understood, and even expected. Someone must be brought to justice for these heinous acts of evil. And yet, we must be careful not to identify last Tuesday with a particular group or culture. Because we are not dealing with something so simple. We are not dealing simply with politics, or worldly power. We are dealing with evil. The devil, if you will. And one trick of evil is to let us believe that it has a face. To believe that we can point a finger at it. But the truth is, evil has no face; it has many masks. To identify evil, therefore, is impossible; when we try, it can assume another shape – possibly even our own. The only thing that we can say, then, about evil, is that its intention is to destroy. And that is what we cannot allow it to do.

"To allow evil to destroy is to enable Tuesday's evildoers to be successful. To destroy steel and concrete is one thing; but to destroy the very foundations of human life is something much bigger. Something virtually impossible, without the permission of those being victimized.

"God does not eliminate evil in this world, though I wish He would. I don't understand why He doesn't. It is difficult, in the wake of such evil, to understand how a loving God could allow such evil to occur. And yet, we must understand that God understands evil. He understands suffering and pain. He has been there, and He is there with us now. In the very midst of suffering, God is with us. Battered by evil, He is there. Defeated by death, He is there. God took Himself all the evil that could be bestowed upon a man, and he prevailed over it. His integrity, his faithfulness… these things could not be destroyed. On that cross, the power of evil was broken. Destruction was annulled by love.

"Let us pray."

---

"Nice service," Derek ventured. He and Addison were walking back from the service, Mark having left them to head back to his own apartment, and they had been walking in silence for three blocks.

"I guess."

He frowned and glanced sideways at her. For the first time in a long time, he wasn't sure how to handle her. He hadn't anticipated the difficulty of Addison's emotional recovery. He had been well-prepared for the physical recovery – hell, he even welcomed it. Medicine, recovery, physical pain – he was a pro at handling all of the above. He had those answers. He could provide solutions. But the emotional fallout – he was adrift, without a compass or any roadmap for how to proceed. And Addison wasn't giving him many clues. "Want to get something to eat?"

She shrugged. "Not really hungry."

He couldn't help the glance at her stomach. "Addie, you should eat something. You haven't had anything except a few bites of muffin, and that was hours ago."

"I'm not hungry, Derek." This time, she caught his glance at her stomach, and she sighed. "Fine. Maybe a sandwich or something."

He nodded, thankful for her compliance and guided her to the small deli they had eaten in countless times before. The window was papered with posters and American flags, and he forced himself not to remember his breakdown the last time he had seen a wall of similar fliers. He led her to a table inside the only window that wasn't completely covered and shrugged out of his jacket, draping it over the back of her chair and lowering himself across from her. The waitress came over and took their drink orders before returning to the counter and leaving them alone again.

Derek glanced around the familiar setting of the deli restaurant and sighed. So familiar, and yet so foreign. He faced Addison and reached across the table, once again taking her hand in his. He wanted to ask her if she was OK, but he knew he had already asked too many times. He was getting sick of hearing himself ask, so he was sure she was sick of being asked.

"I'm glad we went," he said after a moment, and she shrugged.

She was silent for a few minutes before answering verbally. "It felt different."

"Different?"

"Yeah. I mean, I always liked going to church. Even if we didn't go all that often… even if we hadn't been in ages. When I did go, especially when I was stressed about something, I always felt better afterward. But today…" She trailed off and shrugged. "It just felt like… bullshit." She met his eyes, almost sheepish about her declaration. He remained silent, waiting for her to continue. She took his cue. "I mean, what these people did… presumably, they did it in the name of religion, right? I mean, isn't that how these things usually happen? Some sort of holy war? Do we even know how many people kill in the name of some god or other? It seems like an awful lot of people have died in the name of someone who's supposed to be a pacifist." She paused as the server placed two glasses of water in front of them and disappeared once again. "Besides… faith isn't much of a bandage. I mean, what good does it really do? Thousands of people are still dead. Buildings are still in rubble. More people are probably going to die in whatever 'war' we're engaging these people in. It just… seems like a kind of ridiculous thing to believe in, when it never makes any difference. And besides… where was God when this was unfurling? I mean, why didn't He give the attackers massive coronaries or something to save the lives of thousands of innocent people?" She paused and gazed at Derek, her thin shoulders hitching slightly in some semblance of a shrug as she dropped her eyes to where their hands were joined across the table.

Derek was silent for a moment before responding. "Maybe he was in the stairwells." His voice was soft, but his words packed a punch, and her eyes jumped to his. He continued rubbing her hand to soften the strength of his declaration. "Addie, thousands of people died, it's true. Thousands of innocent people died senseless, violent deaths. A few more will probably die in the aftermath and the supposed 'war' that's been declared. But thousands survived, as well. Most importantly, to me anyway, _you _survived. I thought you were dead. I thought I had lost you. And then, suddenly, you were in front of me again. You had been through a hell of a lot, and you were beaten and battered, but you were alive. You were in a skyscraper that got demolished, and yet you survived. And then, as if that weren't miracle enough, our unborn child survived. So I can't just believe it was some arbitrary stroke of luck. I can't believe that it was a crapshoot, some roll of the cosmic dice." He paused and swallowed, a beat of silence lingering before he spoke again. "I prayed." His confession fell between them and he could see the hints of surprise and confusion on her face. "I prayed," he said again. "I prayed to a God that I haven't spoken to in years. A God I haven't really put a lot of stock in for a long time. But Addie, when I had nothing else to believe in, when all logic and reason were telling me you were gone, I prayed, and it was the one thing that gave me hope. I'm a doctor. I'm a man of science, facts, black and white. Concrete things. But Tuesday… the idea of losing you… it stripped me bare. All of that science and fact… it all fell to ruin. And faced with that… I just started begging. I begged God, because I had nothing else to do. And there is no way I can spend the rest of my life thinking that had nothing to do with the fact that you came back to me. It can't be luck. Because luck… it's just too random. And I – we – we're not the kind of people who want to believe in randomness. We believe in facts."

She sighed and removed her hand from his to wrap both of her hands around the glass in front of her. "The fact is, thousands of people are dead."

"And thousands are alive," he replied.

She met his eyes, the look within them unreadable to him. "And who's to say which are which?"

---

_Did you look up to heaven for some kind of answer  
And look at yourself to what really matters  
Did you feel guilty cause you're a survivor  
In a crowded room did you feel alone  
Did you call up your mother and tell her you love her  
Did you dust off that bible at home  
Did you go to a church and hold hands with some stranger  
Stand in line and give your own blood  
Did you just stay home and cling tight to your family  
Thank God you had somebody to love_

---_  
_


	12. Nine Innings from Ground Zero

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from the documentary film "Nine Innings from Ground Zero," written by Ouisie Shapiro._

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.

**A/N: This chapter is kind of long, but I didn't want to break it up. Reviews would be perfection (not to mention motivation). Enjoy.  
**

* * *

**Chapter 12: Nine Innings from Ground Zero**

It had been a week. Seven days since the world had shifted and… well, the world had shifted. Eight days ago, Derek Shepherd had been living the dream. He had a successful medical practice. He had a beautiful, intelligent, successful, loving wife. They had a nice home, good friends, and a baby on the way.

They still had all those things, and yet somehow, everything was different.

Perhaps that was the problem: their lives hadn't really changed, and yet, their lives had changed permanently. Nothing was different, and somehow nothing would ever be the same.

Derek didn't really care about any of it, except for one thing: he missed his wife. Addison hadn't been the same since she had come home from the hospital on Saturday, and while he understood that it had only been a few days, he was desperate for something resembling normal. The short time he had spent thinking he lost her had made him desperate for the connection they had always shared. He could handle the chaos around them, the uncertainty of the world, the newly presented dangers they faced… he could deal with all of it, but he wasn't sure he could deal with the gap he could see forming between himself and his wife.

And yet, he had no idea what to do about it. He didn't want to push her. That much he knew. He had no idea what she'd been through, no idea what she still had to go through, no idea how she felt about anything. Essentially, that was the problem: he didn't know. He didn't know anything, and Derek Shepherd wasn't used to being in the dark.

---

Addison Shepherd felt guilty. In fact, she'd been doing a lot of that in the past few days.

She felt guilty about the hell she had put Derek and Mark through.

She felt guilty that she had made it out when so many others hadn't.

She felt guilty that she was a doctor and she hadn't helped more people at the site.

Perhaps most of all, she felt bad about the fact that her husband so clearly wanted her to spill her guts to him, but that she couldn't. It wasn't that she didn't want to, or that she didn't need to. It was simply that she couldn't. She couldn't open up to him about how she was feeling because she honestly didn't _know _how she was feeling. She knew what she _should _be feeling: grateful. Relieved. Saddened. But the truth of the matter was, she simply felt numb. She felt like the world around her was in chaos, and her own mind was in chaos, but that she was numb to all of it. She simply… couldn't feel.

And that scared her more than anything.

---

"They're picking me up at 6:30," Addison said as she gathered her hair into a ponytail at the nape of her neck and secured it with a clip. She smoothed her hands over the front of her skirt and checked her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come?" Derek watched her intently as he leaned in the doorway to their bathroom. He had watched her put on her makeup, put on her earrings, do her hair… he had watched her do everything.

"I'm sure," she replied, turning to face him and smiling slightly. "Take the night off." From what, she didn't elaborate.

"OK." He straightened as she approached him and pecked her on the lips. "But call me if you need backup, OK?"

She found herself laughing. She could see from his expression that it surprised him as much as it did her. "From my own parents?"

He shrugged. "Yeah."

She nodded. "OK." She slipped past him and into the bedroom, where she retrieved her black heels from beneath her side of the bed. She turned to face him once again and found him staring at her. "What?"

He considered her for a moment before answering. "Are you going to tell them?"

"Tell them what?"

His eyebrow hitched ever so slightly. "About the baby?"

She gazed at him for a moment before shaking her head. "No."

His silence stretched for a few moments before he nodded. "OK."

"We weren't going to tell anyone yet, remember?" She didn't know why she felt like she had to justify her decision. "I think we should stick to that plan."

He nodded again. "OK."

"OK." She watched him for another minute before breaking their gaze and looking around the room. "My purse."

"On the chair," he said.

"Thanks."

---

The bar was unusually crowded for a Tuesday night; Derek assumed it had a lot to do with the fact that after the previous day's restart of the baseball season, tonight was the first Yankee game since the attacks. The game, an away game in Chicago, was on every television in the bar, despite the fact that normally different screens would showcase different channels. Tonight, it was wall-to-wall Yankee coverage. And, judging by the looks of the crowd, wall-to-wall Yankee fans.

Derek shifted on one of the stools he and Mark had managed to secure at the bar and took a sip of the cold beer the bartender had placed in front of him. He couldn't remember the last time it had been just he and Mark in a bar watching a game. It had been awhile. He tried to quell the flutter of anxiety that had risen since Addison had left his side. He hadn't realized until then that she literally hadn't been out of his sight in a week.

He glanced at the TV, where the pre-game coverage was drawing to a close. With the telltale signs that the game was about to start, the bar grew uncharacteristically quiet as all eyes were drawn to one screen or another.

The camera panned over the crowd and Derek felt his breath catch in his throat when the lens focused on a homemade sign that read, "We Are All Yankees." After a moment, the image shifted to a shot of the infield; firefighters and police walked from behind home plate to the edge of the infield as the Yankee players stood along the first baseline, wearing caps with FDNY and NYPD logos embossed on the front. Derek felt a line of chills form at his neck and run down his spine as he watched the TV. The camera once again swept over the crowd and he shivered again as he saw the entire crowd in attendance rise in a standing ovation. He couldn't help smiling to himself; imagine, cheers for the Yankees at Comiskey Park. His smile faltered as the camera focused on another sign: "New York City, Chicago Weeps with You." As the national anthem began to play, he was vaguely aware of Mark shifting beside him. He turned to face him, and noted that his friend was standing, his eyes trained on the TV above their heads. He glanced over at Derek and shrugged his shoulders before turning his focus back to the screen. Derek mirrored his shrug and slid off his stool to stand beside it as the opening bars of the national anthem filled the air of the uncharacteristically quiet bar.

---

"I would technically go back this week to get the stitches out and have a check-up, but Derek can do all of that from home."

"Are you sure, Addison? Maybe you should go back to the hospital. Just to be safe." Her mother's furrowed brow conveyed her concern and Addison had to fight not to roll her eyes.

"Mom, Derek's a neurosurgeon. If I go back to the hospital, they're going to have some intern take out my stitches and some first-year resident give me a once-over and send me on my way. Derek can save me a trip."

"OK, sweetheart." Her father squeezed her mother's hand where it rested on the white linen tablecloth. The gesture wasn't lost on Addison, but she opted to ignore it. "So, the office is being understanding about your absence?"

"Well, a building fell on me, so… yeah." Guilt swept over her and she cursed herself for her dismissive reply when she saw her parents flinch simultaneously. "Sorry." She sighed. "They're fine. I'll probably start working a few hours next week to ease back into it."

"What does Derek say about that?"

"We haven't really talked about it, but I'm sure he's ready to get back to work as well. He's gotten a few calls for consults from Bellevue in just the past few days, but he keeps turning them down to stay home with me." She shrugged. "We're going to have to get back to normal eventually." She watched both of her parents stare at her, and she suddenly realized just how badly she ached for normal.

---

"So how's she doing?"

Derek shrugged as he drained the last of his beer. "OK, I think. She won't really tell me. Sometimes she seems fine, sometimes she seems not fine. She says she's OK, so…" He trailed off and shrugged again as he pushed the empty glass away from him. He could feel Mark's eyes on him and he glanced at his friend, who raised an eyebrow.

"And how are _you _doing?"

Derek shrugged a third time and shook his head. "I don't know. I'm just… worried about her, I guess. I want to make sure she's OK, but I don't want to keep asking her because I feel like she doesn't want me to. She's really quiet all the time, but I guess that's just because she's trying to work through everything. And I understand that, and I know I don't have any answers and I can't even really understand what she's been through, but I still… just wish she'd tell me anyway." His friend nodded slowly and he sighed. "I just… feel like I'm failing her somehow. I mean, I'm supposed to take care of her but…" He paused. "I just feel… guilty."

"Yeah."

Derek turned to face him; it was the first time he had really looked at his friend in a week. In the frantic worry about Addison and the aftermath of her survival, he had forgotten that Mark had been a victim, too. "How are you holding up?"

Mark shrugged. "Hangin' in." He polished off his own drink and pushed the glass next to Derek's at the far side of the bar. "Just wish I could help more."

Derek studied him for a moment before returning his focus to the television screen. "You know, I'm not sure I really thanked you."

"For what?"

"For being there."

"But I wasn't." Mark's voice was dejected, almost vulnerable in a way Derek couldn't remember him ever sounding. He turned to look at his friend's profile. Mark was staring at the damp napkin on the bar in front of him, tearing the edges off and rolling them into balls of soggy paper.

"You were for me. You kept me sane, Mark. I don't know what I…" He trailed off and shook his head. "You helped me keep it together. I couldn't have done that if you hadn't been there." Mark still wasn't looking at him, and Derek reached across and placed his hand on his friend's forearm. "I don't know if I ever told you how unbelievably grateful I am that you're OK."

Mark finally met his eyes and pushed a small smile to his lips. "Thanks man." They sat in silence for a moment longer before Derek nodded and broke their gaze.

"We need more beer."

"Definitely."

---

"I've always hated the thought of you living in the city," her mother said as the waiter placed their orders on the table. "It's so dangerous."

"I know, Mom. But 'you might get mugged on the street' dangerous is kind of different from 'a plane might fly into a skyscraper and cause it to plummet to the earth' dangerous."

"Addison, we just worry," her father interjected. "You and Derek both work such long hours in different parts of town… we know you get home late some nights. And, despite what you say, we know you take the subway. We're allowed to worry. Especially after… everything."

"I know, Dad. I just… I'm fine, OK? Derek and I have been in the city for years and nothing bad has ever happened. And this… well, this shouldn't even count. It could have happened anywhere."

"But it didn't," her mother replied. "It happened in New York. And who knows what the next step will be, but it could very well be New York again."

"Mom, I'm not moving. I like my life in New York. I love my practice. I'm happy here. And despite what's happened, I feel safe here. I'm not moving."

The family of three fell into silence, shifting their focus to the meals before them, and Addison considered her own words. She _did _feel safe here. It was home. She wasn't sure about much at this point in time, but she couldn't imagine living anywhere else. She couldn't imagine healing anywhere else, or working through things anywhere else. And it was almost soothing to be surrounded by people who felt as victimized as she did. She belonged in New York. Thriving, prosperous New York or damaged, heartbroken New York… it didn't matter. It was home. And whatever she had to do to get back to normal, she wouldn't be doing it anywhere else.

---

"So everything seems to be OK with the baby?"

Derek nodded as he swallowed a mouthful of his beer. "Yeah. Fetal heart rate checked out at the hospital, and she's got an appointment with her own OB/GYN sometime next week, I think."

"Good."

"Yeah." Derek's voice was flat.

"Not good?"

"No, of course it's good. It's just… you know that whole 'not telling people before the end of the first trimester' superstition?"

"Yeah."

"Well, we were going to wait until around then to tell our families. But after everything that's happened, I just feel like I want to tell people. I want to tell everyone. I mean, she's at eleven weeks, first trimester's just about done, and besides… it's good news, right? Any good news right now is… well, good. But she doesn't want to."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I asked her tonight if she was going to tell her parents and she said no. But she was almost… defensive about it. I don't know. Maybe I'm just imagining it. I just… I want to be happy again. I want to get back to where we were and just… be happy. Be thankful that she's OK, and that we're OK, and our baby's OK." He sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair before folding his arms across the bar and staring at the rows of colored bottles across from them. "I thought her fighting to wake up was going to be the hard part… was that stupid? I didn't really think about how hard it was going to be to just… be."

"That wasn't stupid," Mark assured him gently. "I don't think anybody realized how hard it would be to… be."

Derek glanced at him and sighed again. "Yeah." He thought back to Addison's perusal of the newspapers and the boldly-colored front-page declarations of war. "How am I going to be able to protect my family here? I couldn't even protect my wife."

"Derek, this thing…"

"I know, I know. You think it'll be over before the baby even gets here."

"Well, it will. It's about oil… it's always about oil."

"Didn't we win this war once already?"

Mark shrugged. "Does anybody ever win a war?"

"I guess not," Derek replied as he took a swig of his beer and licked his lips, nodding his approval as the first inning came to a close with a 2-0 Yankee lead. He turned to his friend as the between-innings commercial break began. "You know Iris's son joined the Air Force on Wednesday?"

Mark raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really. She left a message on the machine at the office. Sounded pretty freaked out."

Mark shook his head as he raised his glass to his lips. "Understandable. But you should tell her… he'll be in basic training until this thing's over."

"Let's hope so."

---

"Hey, how was dinner?"

Addison rolled her eyes as she shrugged out of her coat. "The usual. How was the game?"

"Good. Yanks won, 11-3."

"Good."

Derek watched as she hung her coat and purse on the stand just inside the door and bent to take off her heels. He stepped toward her and kissed her softly.

"Mark here?"

"Nah… went home."

"Oh."

They fell into silence and Derek slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his thumbs hooking over the tops. "Parents didn't want to come in?"

"I think they've had enough of their argumentative daughter for one night."

"Addison." His brow furrowed; he had always hated it when she gave herself a hard time about her relationship with her parents. She was beautiful, successful, classy, intelligent… as far as he was concerned, the only thing they had any right to second-guess was her marrying him. Which they did. But he hated it when they made her feel insecure. He opened his mouth to continue, but she cut him off.

"It's OK. It really wasn't that bad. They send their best."

He nodded, opting to let the subject drop. "Ice cream?"

She gazed at him for a moment, a small smile making its way lazily across her lips. "You know my weaknesses too well."

He grinned, reaching for her hand and leading her into the kitchen and pointing toward the table as he moved to the freezer. "How do you think I got you to marry me?"

She shrugged as she lowered herself into a chair. "I'm pretty sure a three-carat, F-clarity diamond was involved."

"Like you said… I know your weaknesses." He grabbed two spoons from a drawer and pushed it shut with his hip as he maneuvered around the counter to join her at the table, extending a spoon toward her. "Rocky road, rocky rings… it all falls under the same umbrella."

She chuckled as he grinned again. "Yeah, yeah."

He pulled the lid off the tub of ice cream and placed it between them, taking a spoonful and leaning back in his chair to watch as Addison did the same. She mirrored his posture and gazed back at him, licking the blob of ice cream on her spoon. He raised an eyebrow as he watched her and his previously innocent smile gave way to a much more mischievous one. "I see you know my weaknesses as well."

She shot him a playful glare. "Don't get your hopes up."

He laughed and leaned forward for another spoonful of ice cream. "Wouldn't dream of it." He watched as Addison scooped another ball of ice cream and sighed. For the first time in a week, normal felt almost possible. "Hey, Mark still has those tickets to the Yankee game if you still want to go."

Addison frowned slightly and attempted to answer around a mouthful of rocky road. "They're still valid?"

He shrugged. "They just pushed all the games back to when they restarted the season. It'll be the first home game since… well, the first game back in the stadium. They're on the road this week."

She appeared to mull it over for a few minutes before she shrugged. "I don't see why not. When is it?"

"The 25th. Tuesday." He silently wondered when the word "Tuesday" would stop carrying such weight.

She shrugged again. "OK. I have my OB/GYN appointment Tuesday afternoon, but I could meet you guys at the station."

He frowned. "Well, I thought…" He paused and twirled his empty spoon around in his hand. "I thought I'd come with you."

"To the OB/GYN?"

"Well, yeah. Isn't that what expectant fathers do?"

She frowned. "Yeah. I guess they do."

He studied her for a moment. "Unless you don't want me to come."

She shook her head quickly. "No, no. Of course I do. I just… hadn't really thought about it, to be honest." She paused. "Hm. Twelve weeks. I guess I just… hadn't really been paying attention. The first sonogram… we'll be able to hear the heartbeat." When he didn't react, she frowned slightly, trying to read his expression until it clicked. "You heard it already."

"At the hospital… they did a sonogram to see if they could get a fetal heartbeat…" He paused, feeling suddenly guilty. "They let me hear it."

"Right. Of course." She nodded, noting his discomfort and placed her spoon on the table, reaching across the space between them and taking hold of his hand. "Well, that's the last time you're going to know something about this pregnancy before I do, so don't get used to it."

He smiled, the worry vanishing from his face. "Yes ma'am."

---

Derek clapped his cell phone shut as he stared at a poster on the wall depicting a child in utero. "Mark's going to meet us at the 59th Street Station at 4:30. I figure we can just grab something to eat outside the stadium or eat there."

"OK." Addison frowned at Derek's back as she shifted on the exam table. "Derek, what are you doing?"

He spun to face her and buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He chewed on the inside of his lip and debated his answer; he wasn't sure he could explain how, despite his medical education, despite the fact that he had done a rotation in obstetrics, the whole concept of pregnancy and childbirth blew him away when he considered the fact that it was _his _wife and _his _child making up the equation. He opted for a noncommittal shrug. "Just jittery, I guess."

Addison shifted again and made a face as she attempted to keep the paper gown closed around her. "I hate these things." She glanced at Derek, who was now leaning against the poster that had formerly been the object of his scrutiny, his arms folded across the dark blue Yankees t-shirt that she knew had Jeter's number "2" on the back and his dark hair peeking out from beneath his faded Yankees cap. His legs were crossed at the ankles, all of his weight on his right foot while his left foot bounced rhythmically. She was struck, not for the first time, by how handsome he was, and she bit her lip.

"What?" She lifted her gaze from her scrutiny of his appearance to meet his eye. Busted.

"What?" she repeated.

"You were staring at me."

"No I wasn't." He raised an eyebrow but remained silent and she sighed. "You know how much I like you in a cap."

An impish smile replaced his inquisitive expression. "Now that's exactly the kind of thinking that got you in that condition, Dr. Shepherd."

"Yeah, well, I seem to remember you had a little something to do with it yourself, Dr. Shepherd."

His retort was cut off by the door opening and the appearance of Addison's OB/GYN.

---

The first difference Derek noticed as they approached the gates to Yankee Stadium was that the vendors selling Yankee memorabilia had added FDNY and NYPD caps to their merchandise. And, judging by the supply on most of the carts, they seemed to be out-selling the traditional Yankee caps.

The second difference was that the amount of security lurking around the entrances – and, Derek suspected, inside the park – had been drastically increased.

The third was that what was once a half-hearted perusal of people's belongings had turned into a legitimate search at the gates; fans were prohibited from bringing in all but the very smallest bags, and many were forced to leave bags outside the park or return them to their vehicles. People were frisked and wanded before being granted entry. As Derek, Mark and Addison had their tickets scanned and entered the stadium, all three were handed small American flags.

The changes didn't stop at the gates.

Inside the park, as Derek had suspected, security was at an all-time high. A large number of fans had traded the traditional Yankee jerseys and t-shirts for outfits of red, white, and blue. The flagpoles lining the white outfield façade that usually held the pennants of other teams instead held twenty American flags at full staff. The familiar Yankees logo behind home plate had been painted red and blue with white stars.

As much as Derek could understand and appreciate the surge of patriotism, he almost wished that here, inside the park where, he, Addison, and Mark had spent so many afternoons, things were a little more normal. As they made their way to their seats near the first baseline, he glanced at Addison and hoped that the mood of the evening wouldn't be too much for her to handle.

"Section 51… here we go." Mark led them to their seats near the middle of the row and shrugged out of his jacket before lowering himself into his seat. Addison took the seat next to him as Derek brought up the rear. He hovered over the other two for a moment as he reached into his pocket and retrieved his wallet. "I'm going to get a beer. What do you guys want?"

"I'll take a beer," Mark replied.

"Lemonade," Addison said.

Derek nodded as he retreated back the way they had come. Mark and Addison sat in companionable silence for a few moments until Mark spoke.

"How'd your appointment go?"

Addison nodded as she shrugged out of her denim jacket and draped it over the back of her seat. "Good. Did the whole sonogram-and-heartbeat thing. It was good."

"Good." He paused, fiddling with his watch for a moment before speaking again. "How are you doing?"

"Good," she said again. "Fine." She glanced at him and shrugged. "I know Derek's worried – I can tell because he's hovering – but really, I'm fine. I don't even remember a lot of what happened and what I do remember I'm dealing with. So… I'm fine."

"Good."

They lapsed back into silence as they each surveyed the scene unfolding inside the stadium. The typical blue and white of the crowd had an unmistakable red presence and the small flags that had been given at the gates were waving throughout the park. As the players warmed up with sprints in the outfield, patriotic music blared from the stadium speakers. "This is kind of weird," he said after a moment.

"Yeah." She didn't elaborate, and Derek reappeared with a tray of drinks. As the three settled, a rumble of chatter and cheers began to grow from the stands as the stadium announcer introduced Branford Marsalis, and the opening bars of a saxophone rendition of "Taps" broke through the air. Derek reached between them and took Addison's hand as the rumble of chatter was silenced by the lone instrument. Immediately afterward, the Harlem Boys' Choir performed "We Shall Overcome," followed by Michael Bolton singing "Lean On Me." By the time an Irish tenor began singing "God Bless America," Derek's hand was aching from the tense grip Addison had on it. He leaned toward her.

"You OK?" he whispered in her ear.

She nodded without saying anything and he straightened once again, returning his focus to the field but glancing at her every few moments. He saw Mark glance at her as well, and the two men shared a look neither one could read.

The national anthem followed, performed by the son of the New York City Fire Commissioner as the two teams lined up along the baselines, joined by police, firefighters and rescue workers. The players were once again wearing hats from the New York and Port Authority police departments and the New York Fire Department.

Applause throughout the ceremony had been enthusiastic, but when Mayor Guiliani was brought onto the field by Joe Torre, the stadium erupted.

It was amazing, and yet… it was too much.

For the first time in his life, Derek didn't want to be inside Yankee Stadium. He didn't want to be standing with thousands of people, the too-recent tragedy being mourned right in front of him. He didn't want to be thinking about what had transpired a mere two weeks earlier. He wanted to be home, in his house, with his wife. He didn't want to feel the pain of thousands of fellow New Yorkers, and he didn't want to think about all of the people standing along the baselines who had been in the same place Addison had been when she had been hurt. He didn't want to think about everything that had happened that he didn't even know about. He just wanted to move on.

He wanted to go home.

He glanced at Addison again, but she didn't seem fazed by the display. She was rapt, watching the ceremony with the kind of stern concentration she usually reserved for surgery. And, he realized, the same kind of absorption she had displayed when she had been reading the pile of newspapers and magazines the morning after she got home from the hospital.

He squeezed her hand to get her to meet his eye, but she simply squeezed back and kept her eyes trained on the field.

---

"That was nice," she said as they entered the brownstone and Derek flipped the light switch before closing the door behind them.

"I guess. Would have been nicer if we'd won."

"True. But the beginning, I mean. With the ceremony and everything." He shrugged in response and she glanced at him, her question written on her face. "You didn't like it?"

He looked at her for a moment before sighing as he kicked off his shoes inside the door and walked into the den, sinking into the couch. "Not really."

"Why not?" She stood across from him, on the opposite side of the coffee table.

"I don't know Addie, it was just… a bit much."

"A bit much?"

"Yeah. I mean, I know things are crazy. What happened was crazy. But all of the flags, and the hats, and the five different songs, and the mayor… it just seemed kind of excessive."

"Excessive."

He shrugged. "Yeah. I mean, it was a nice gesture and all… but maybe people don't need big gestures of pomp and patriotism. Maybe what people need is a little more normalcy. Things are weird enough without adding to them."

"Normalcy? You think people need normalcy? So, what, you would just say 'let's go back to business as usual'? Forget about everything that happened and just carry on?"

"I'm not saying forget it, Addie, I'm just saying… start moving past it. Start healing."

"You're a surgeon, Derek. You should know what happens when you sew someone up without repairing what's wrong underneath."

He pinned her with a gaze. "Well, you're a surgeon too, Addison. You should know that you can't fix what's wrong if you don't diagnose it first." She frowned and he could see that he had hit a nerve.

"Well, maybe it didn't feel excessive for the people who were there."

He couldn't tell if by "there" she meant the game or the site, though he suspected she meant the latter. He sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Addie, I want to help, but you have to tell me how. You have to let me in. I want to understand."

She considered him for a moment. "But you don't." Her words may as well have been a slap as she turned and walked from the room.

---

_I hold you in my arms,  
Yeah that's when it starts  
I seek faith in your kiss  
And comfort in your heart  
I taste the seed upon your lips,  
Lay my tongue upon your scars  
But when I look into your eyes  
We stand worlds apart_

---


	13. Should Have Seen the End of Summer

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from a line in the song "This Ain't a Love Song" by Bon Jovi._

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.

**Reviews rock my world.  
**

* * *

**Chapter 13: Should Have Seen the End of Summer in Your Eyes**

He sat in the middle of the couch for a few moments, picturing her words bouncing off the walls and echoing around him before he rose and followed her up the stairs to where she had disappeared into their bedroom. He stepped into the room and heard the faucet running in the bathroom. He moved toward the closed door, raising his hand to knock before pausing and flattening it against the grooved wood of the door, leaning in and resting his forehead beside it. He measured his breaths, listening to the stream of water and straining to hear sounds of his wife moving on the other side of the door, but, if she were making any noise, the water drowned the sounds out. He stayed that way for a moment longer before curling his fingers into a fist and lightly rapping on the door. "Addie?" The water stopped, but there was no response. "Can I come in?" No answer. He debated trying the knob, doubting it would actually be locked, but he was determined to wait for her permission. "Addie," he said again, turning so that his head lost contact with the door and he was resting his weight on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry." The words from behind the door were muffled, and he couldn't tell if she had been crying or if it was just the new tone of her voice he had yet to get used to.

"Addison—"

"It's open." He straightened as he turned the brass doorknob and pushed it open, remaining on the threshold as the door swung into the bathroom. His eyes traveled to where she sat on the edge of the Jacuzzi bathtub, a hand towel in her hands and her eyes trained on her lap. Her shoulders were hunched, so unlike her usual posture, and he ached to step inside and take her in his arms, but he stayed put, anchored by a combination of desire to let her go at her own pace and lingering irritation at her earlier words. He rested his shoulder against the doorjamb and leaned into it. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I shouldn't have said that. I know how hard you're trying. It's not…" She hesitated and shook her head slightly. "It's not your fault you don't understand."

"Addie." He fought to keep his voice gentle. "You're overwhelmed. That's OK. It's to be expected. It's going to take some time."

"It doesn't _feel _OK," she interrupted, her eyes rising to meet his. He could see that they were bright with unshed tears. "I feel like there's this rift between us, because you're never going to understand, and there's no way I can explain it to you. I just… can't."

He sighed, running his hand through his hair as he stepped onto the tiled floor, nearing her and lowering himself to squat in front of her. "It's OK," he said again. He propped his elbows on his knees and gently placed his hands on the outsides of either of her calves as he stared up at her. "You're right. I'm never going to understand what it was like to be there that day. To be honest, I don't think I need to. I know that everyone's going to remember this day for a long, long time. Everyone's going to remember September 11th, and the day this horrible thing happened. But to me, it will always be the day that I almost lost you." She bit her lip against the increasingly strong threat of tears as she stared at him. He was silent for a moment before exhaling softly and caressing her outer calves with his thumbs. "You're right," he said again. "I can never understand what it was like to be there. But maybe I don't need to understand that. Maybe I just need to understand you. I don't need to know everything that happened… I just need to know what's going on with you. Because really, that's all I care about. And that… that, I think you can find a way to explain to me."

She gazed down at him and he could see her turning his words over in her mind before shaking her head slowly. She trained her eyes back on the towel she was wringing in her hands. "I can't explain it to you. I can't..." She trailed off.

"What?" She continued to twist and untwist the small towel. After a moment, she opened her mouth to speak, but instead caught her lower lip in her teeth and chewed on it as she stared into her lap. "Addie." Finally, she met his eye and her hands stilled in her lap as she gazed at him. "What?" His pleading voice was barely above a whisper.

"It's so ungrateful." Her voice was the same whisper as his. He frowned and remained silent, letting her set the pace of the conversation. She bit her lip again and resumed twisting the towel as she appeared to consider her next words, but her gaze stayed on his face. She released her lip to swallow and she shifted on the edge of the tub as she took a deep breath and sighed. "All those people died…" She trailed off again and his brows knitted together. He tried to read into her words as his legs began to ache.

"But you didn't die, Addie. You survived. You're still here."

Her eyes dropped again. "Yeah, but sometimes it feels like I did die. Sometimes… I almost wish I had." She risked a glance at his face as her words hung between them.

He looked like he had been slapped as he stared at her, mouth agape. "Addison." It was a plea, an admonishment, a disbelief. He sunk back onto the cold ivory tile, his hands losing contact with her legs as he leaned his back against the wooden doors of the sink cabinet. He gazed at her face, his legs bent and his feet flat on the floor. He propped his elbows on his knees and grabbed his left wrist in his right hand.

Appearing to have gained a small amount of momentum with her admission, she continued. "The biggest tragedy on American soil… I was there. I was a part of it. And I can barely remember. I feel like a ghost, just walking around on a tightrope between dead and alive. I'm here, breathing, existing… but I don't feel like I'm _living._ I don't know how to be who I was, but I don't know who else I can be." Her shoulders hitched in a self-defeated half-shrug. "I'm surrounded by all these people… people who were there, or would have been there, or people who loved someone who was there… it's everywhere. Everywhere I turn, there's another reminder that I should be grateful. I should feel thankful. I was one of the lucky ones." She paused and swallowed, and when she spoke again, her voice had lost the momentum she had been gaining, and had fallen back to something barely above a whisper. "I wasn't even grateful when I found out the baby was OK. I just felt… numb." She met his eyes again, her self-disgust evident on her face. "What kind of mother feels that way?"

"Addison." His voice was suddenly sharp, and he shook his head. She couldn't tell if he was scolding her for her admission or if he was implying that her self-doubt was absurd. He stared at her for a moment longer, replaying her words in his mind until his expression settled, and she could tell he had latched onto something she had said.

"I'll take you away from this city. We can get a house… we can be near your family, or my family, or just… somewhere on our own. Wherever."

She frowned. "What? No. I don't want to leave the city." She was disappointed, but at the same time, she understood him as she always had – he needed the problem to have a solution. Her emotions, her insecurities, her self-loathing… those things he couldn't fix. Her admission that the city's current state was overwhelming… that, he could fix. She shook her head again.

He stared at her, his anxiety seeping through the carefully constructed mask of assurance, and suddenly, it was all too much. The tears that had pooled in her eyes spilled down over her cheeks and she shook her head. "I just want to go back. I want to just be us. Be happy. Be excited about the baby, and just… be us. I want to feel normal." She swiped at her cheeks with the towel before returning it to her lap and staring down at it. "I want to feel alive."

He stared at her from his position on the tile floor and she met his eyes, gazing back at him for a moment before sliding off the edge of the tub and kneeling in front of him. He straightened slightly and parted his bent legs, opening his arms in invitation. She scooted toward him, rearranging herself to sit between his splayed knees, leaning against his chest with her shoulder and resting her head on his collarbone. He encircled her with his arms, and she could feel his lips press against the crown of her head as his hands ran over her back and shoulder. "You are alive," he said after a moment, his words seeping into her hair. "You are alive, and because of that, so am I."

She felt a tightening in her chest as his admission lingered, and tears pricked at her eyes once again. She felt something pat the top of her head once, then again, and she realized a moment later that they were his tears. She stayed between his bent legs in the cocoon he had made for her a moment longer before angling her head back to meet his gaze. She had been right – his clear blue eyes were red-rimmed and a few telltale tracks lined his cheeks.

Suddenly, staring into his face, she realized how close they had come. How close they had both come to losing everything. Both of their lives had been in danger, and he hadn't been anywhere near the financial district. She realized, suddenly, that while she had been the one in the towers, he had been the one who had truly been staring down the barrel of a gun.

Her mind flashed back to a class she had taken in med school that dealt with death and grieving. The professor had said that funerals weren't for the dead – they were for the ones left behind. She realized, suddenly, that if she _had _died, she still would have been getting the easier end of the deal. Because Derek – her beloved Derek – would have been the one left to deal with what came afterward. As she leaned against his warm body, staring into his red-rimmed eyes, she felt a whole different kind of guilt sucker-punch her in the stomach. For the first time in days, it wasn't survivor guilt. It was the guilt of knowing that as messed up as she was, Derek had had a rough ride as well. She had already considered the horrors he must have faced as he pictured her dying – what she hadn't taken into consideration was the panic he must have felt at the prospect of facing the rest of his life alone. It was one thing to lose someone – to feel that grief, that shock, that anguish in the moments and days after it happens. It was quite another thing a few months down the road, when the funeral was over, people had gone back to their lives, and the bereft one was left alone, having to reconsider his entire future.

Her dismay must have shown on her face because his tears had dried and his brow was knitted in a frown. "Hey." His voice was thick with the tears he hadn't shed.

"Hey." She attempted to smooth out her own features as she stared back up at him. They fell once again into silence as they regarded each other. She could feel the heat radiating from his chest and she flattened a hand against his heart, feeling the gentle, rhythmic thud beneath the worn cotton of his t-shirt. "You are alive," she affirmed, continuing to feel his heartbeat beneath the white NY logo of his Yankees t-shirt.

As doctors, it was a word they uttered daily – a word she had never understood the weight of, until now. It meant one thing medically – it meant quite another thing when you considered its implication. A beating heart didn't mean alive – a pounding heart did. It was one thing to be alive, and another thing entirely to feel it.

She focused on the steady rhythm for a moment longer before curling her hand and trailing the tip of her index finger up to his neck, where she once again flattened her hand against the warm skin of his neck, feeling the gentle, steady flutter of his carotid pulse.

"So are you," he murmured, in response to her declaration. She gazed up at him as she straightened in his arms, running her thumb along the stubble of his jaw line.

"I want to feel it," she said, her voice low. "I want to feel alive."

He nodded his understanding. "You will, Addie. You will."

She shook her head slightly. "I mean now. I want to feel alive now."

"Addie, give it time—" He was cut off by the finger she had trailed up his neck pressing to his lips. She stared into his eyes, blue meeting blue as a curious mix of understanding and confusion wrangled in his gaze.

"Make me feel alive, Derek."

The confusion melted away and was replaced with doubt. "Addie," he murmured around the finger still pressed to his mouth. He faltered and kissed the tip of the digit before shaking his head.

"Please."

He stared at her, taking in the bruises that had turned from angry black and blue to a healing purple and yellowish green. The skin near her hairline was knitting itself back together, and the bruising from where the doctor had realigned the bone pieces of her nose was nearly gone. She watched him studying her face, and he could see a sudden wave of insecurity take over her features. He knew her well enough to know that she was suddenly remembering how she looked. To quell any insecurity, he grabbed the wrist of the hand that was pressed to his mouth and pulled it aside, leaning in to press a kiss to her mouth. He felt her hesitation for a brief moment before she relaxed into his kiss, the momentary stiffness melting from her body as she relaxed against his torso. He let go of her wrist and moved his hand around to the back of her head, caressing the skin at the nape of her neck with his thumb. He deepened the kiss, exploring the warm cavern of her mouth before pulling away, placing a chaste kiss to her lips and withdrawing his hand from her hair to gently caress her cheek.

"You have to be sure," he said gently, his clear eyes boring into hers, and she had a sudden flashback to the first time they had slept together, and his hesitation to push her if she wasn't ready.

She forced herself not to smile at the memory. "I'm sure," she promised, reaching a hand up and grasping the wrist next to her cheek. "I'm sure," she said again as he gazed at her, and he nodded, leaning in and capturing her lips once again. He took hold of her head in both of his hands as he kissed her, gently stroking her face with his thumbs. He pulled away and held her face in his hands for a moment before releasing her from his grasp and pushing himself up from the cool tile floor. He straightened and gazed down at her, extending both of his hands to help her up. She accepted his hands and straightened to stand before him, gazing up at him as he lowered his head toward her and kissed her once more before taking her hand in his and leading her from the bathroom.

---

Addison sighed as her back met the window and the cool temperature of the glass seeped through the thin cotton of Derek's t-shirt, which she had thrown on after extricating herself from the tangled sheets of their bed. She reclined against the window and stretched her long legs out along the window seat of what they had only half-jokingly dubbed their "study," gazing out into the relative quiet of the city and watching the cars on the street below. It was one of the many things she had always loved about living in New York – on nights when she couldn't sleep, or nights when she was up late working, she never felt like she was alone. How could she, in the city that never slept?

She shivered slightly, the temperature of the glass telling her that summer was officially gone, and another New York fall was on its way. She tried to flash forward to familiar images of how she and Derek always spent the fall in the city, but visions of fashion week, the Village Halloween Parade, and brown-bagging in the sculpture court of the Met, alongside the changing foliage of Central Park, were surprisingly hard to conjure up. She tried to think further ahead, to their favorite time of year, and tried to picture Christmas shopping on Fifth Avenue and battling tourists to see the tree in Rockefeller Center, but even those familiar visions eluded her. She toyed with the idea of going down to the kitchen and making herself some coffee, but she knew that the aroma would wake Derek, and she wanted to maintain her solitude for awhile longer. She had been thankful that, as she slipped from their bed, he hadn't stirred; she didn't want to face the concern and unease that had lingered in his eyes since she'd come home from the hospital, or to have to reassure him once again that everything was fine. She no longer knew whether or not she was lying when she told him that – could things be completely different, and still be fine? Could everything somehow be OK when nothing felt normal? She had no idea.

Addison could feel the revealing tenderness in her cheeks, telling her that the soft skin had been rubbed pink and sensitive by his stubble; beneath the shirt, she knew a faint bite mark graced her collarbone. She had always loved bearing the marks left behind by their nights together; they made her feel loved. Marked. Claimed. By him. They made her feel like… his. The only thing missing this time were the faint finger-shaped bruises that sometimes appeared on her hipbones – he had been far too gentle to leave such marks on her tonight.

Sex with Derek had always been good. It had always amazed her, actually, just how good. And tonight, as he had gradually lost his hesitation and stopped handling her like she might break, he had once again taken her to the brink of pleasure and pushed her over the edge, eliciting sensations from her body like no one else ever had. She had reveled in the familiarity of his touch, his kisses, his caresses. She had been fascinated by something she had never really noticed: the way his heart thudded in his chest, how she could feel it through the sweat-slicked skin of his chest as he pressed up against her. She had taken that proof of life and tried to drink it in, wrap herself in it.

Because for all the passion she had felt, the ecstasy, the gentle humming sensation that he had coaxed from her body – in spite of all that emotion, the numbness that had taken hold inside her the sex hadn't done a damn thing about.

---

_Sometimes the truth  
Just ain't enough  
Or is it too much in times like this  
Let's throw the truth away  
We'll find it in this kiss  
In your skin upon my skin  
In the beating of our hearts  
May the living let us in  
Before the dead tear us apart_

_--- _


	14. Two Rooms at the End of the World

**My City of Ruins**

_The title for this story is taken from the song "My City of Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen.  
The title for this chapter is taken from a line in the song "Two Rooms at the End of the World" by Elton John_

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything "Grey's"-related. I'm working on it.

**Reviews would be bliss.  
**

* * *

**Chapter 14: Two Rooms at the End of the World**

"Addison." Her eyes cracked open as she eyed Derek's silhouette hovering in the door to the study. She attempted to sit up, but a shot of pain lanced through her neck and back, punishing her for falling asleep on the hard, unforgiving window seat, her spine curved like a question mark. "Addison," he said again, squinting in the gray darkness of the pre-dawn.

"Hey," she replied, arching her back as her muscles screamed in protest. She could just make out his frown in the darkness and she smoothed a hand over her hair. "I didn't want to wake you."

His frown deepened. "You OK?"

She nodded. "Yeah," she added, in case the nonverbal gesture was lost to the shadows. "Fine. Just restless." His expression was dubious. How much longer, she wondered, would they dance this dance?

He leaned against the doorjamb, his muscular arms folded across his bare chest, his bare toes curling against the cold wood floor. He visibly shivered, his cotton boxers offering little warmth against the chill of the night. His dark hair stood out from his head in a million different directions, teased by her hands and matted by his pillow. He regarded her for a moment before glancing around the room. She could see him turning words over in his head, and she waited for him to try once again to penetrate the wall of detachment she had built with every assertion that she was "fine." He was silent for a moment longer before allowing his gaze to trail from the walls to her face. "So I was thinking," he began, shifting his weight and uncrossing his arms to run a hand through his unruly hair. "This would be a good nursery."

She frowned slightly, surprised at the unexpected subject. "What?"

The hand that had been running through his hair extended and gestured around the dim room. "This room. I was thinking it would make a good nursery. It's a good size, and it's right across the hall from us." He paused, gauging her reaction. She was gazing around the room, her brow creased slightly as she did so, the concept of a nursery clearly one that she hadn't even considered.

"We would have to paint it," she said after a moment, but it wasn't an argument against the idea; simply a comment.

"That's doable," he replied, aiming for encouragement without pressure.

She nodded slightly, glancing around the room for a moment before meeting his eye, grateful that he had avoided pointing out the oddity of finding her curled up in a ball against the large bay window before the sun had risen. She turned slowly, letting her legs hang off the seat and curling her toes as they met the cool floor. After a moment, she let her heels thump gently against the wood paneling that was the front of the bench seat. "Toy box?" she suggested as the hollow thud echoed through the room.

He nodded in response, his excitement at her input almost tangible. She felt her stomach clench – had he always been this easy to please, or had life with her during the past two weeks truly been that difficult? "Definitely," he said.

She could feel him studying her in the gradually increasing light as night gave way to morning. She nodded again, feeling suddenly, tragically inept at verbal communication. He regarded her for a moment before filling the void of silence, and she wondered if her discomfort were that tangible, or if he knew her that well, or if they had simply gotten used to filling each other's silences when silence was too heavy to bear. "I was actually thinking… maybe… baby shopping."

She frowned. "Today?"

He nodded. "I don't have anything planned, apart from jogging with Mark at 7. I thought if you wanted, we could make a day of it."

She arched an eyebrow as she considered this – once upon a time, it would have been something they needed to schedule. It would have been something they had each written on their calendars, crossed out, erased, and rewritten a few times over as surgeries, consults, appointments and procedures wreaked havoc on their personal schedules. Now, though, their sudden freedom from work had given them the time that they had once craved. She could almost laugh at the irony. She couldn't work and Derek didn't seem interested in it. Outside of two consults he had done in the past week as favors to fellow physicians, he hadn't gone near the office in two weeks by choice. She craved the normalcy of her workday, but couldn't practice medicine until she had been cleared to do so. He was staring at her intently, awaiting her response. She shrugged. "OK."

He nodded, a blend of pleasure and relief washing across his features. "OK." He glanced at the clock on the wall to his left. 6:10. "Want some coffee?"

She shook her head slightly as she rose from the bench seat, stretching as she stepped toward him and placed a chaste kiss to his lips. "I think I'm just going to hop in the shower."

He encircled her loosely in his arms, resting his folded hands at the small of her back as a playful smile pulled at his lips. "Want company?"

She matched his smirk. "You forget – I've seen you run with Mark. I think you should probably save your energy."

He mock-grimaced. "Ouch."

Her smile widened as she repeated his earlier kiss and pulled back to look into his face. "How far you going?"

"Probably just twice around the Reservoir. Shouldn't take longer than half an hour, with the time there and back. I can grab some bagels on the way back, if you want, so you can have breakfast while I shower and change."

She nodded as she disentangled herself from his grasp. "Make sure you get some of the veggie cream cheese, too."

"How could I forget?" he teased, releasing her and following her from the room.

---

"Hey man," Mark greeted as he released his ankle and grabbed the other one, stretching his quad muscle as he nodded at his approaching friend. The red of his Nike t-shirt was bright in the early morning sun; his black Adidas track pants were unzipped at the ankles. "On time for once."

"Look who's talking," Derek retorted, dropping to one knee to retie one of his running shoes. He looked like an inverted image of his friend; his black Under Armour shirt hugged his muscled chest while the faded red of his sweatpants paled in comparison to the crimson of Mark's shirt. "Twice around?" he asked as he straightened.

"Sounds good," Mark replied, hooking one of his sport headphones around his ear and tucking the other one inside his shirt, dropping a small, rectangular device into the pocket of his pants.

"What the hell is that thing?" Derek asked, grabbing his own ankle as he stretched his quad.

Mark retrieved the gadget and held it up for Derek's inspection. "It's called an iPod. Apple's new mp3 player… Joanie gave it to me to try it out," he added, referring to one of the women he had been dating in the past month, who held a considerably high-up position with Apple. "They're being launched next month, she said. Pretty cool," he added, fiddling with the click wheel as Derek shrugged.

"If you say so."

Mark smirked. "I know. You have enough trouble using your cell phone without having to worry about recreational technology."

"Whatever." Derek released his leg and rolled his neck, hopping up and down twice as he raised his eyebrows. "Ready?"

"Ready," Mark confirmed, returning the iPod to his pocket and falling into step beside his friend as they set a steady pace. They jogged in silence for a few minutes, each feeling their muscles loosen and warm as they passed an older man walking a small dog and a pair of forty-something women power walking in unison. "You coming into the office at all today?" Mark asked, his voice still steady and even, breathlessness not having yet worked its way in.

"Nope," Derek replied as they passed a youngish woman pushing a stroller with giant wheels, her jog a much slower gait than theirs. "Going baby shopping."

"Oh yeah?" Mark sounded pleased by this announcement. "Good for you guys. That'll be good for her."

"Yeah." They fell into silence for a moment before Derek filled it once again. "I'd invite you, but I figured it wouldn't exactly be your idea of a good time."

Mark chuckled beside him. "Yeah. Thanks, man. I'm headed into the office, anyway. Someone's gotta keep the ball rolling."

Derek tried to quell the wave of guilt that rose within him, knowing that Mark's jest had been good-natured. "I know. I owe you for this."

"Nah," Mark replied, adjusting and re-securing the headphone around his ear. "I've got it covered. You just… worry about Addison." Derek was silent for a moment, considering the consequences of admitting what had happened the night before, but ultimately knowing that he would, as he always did, confide in Mark. His friend, however, picked up on the inner debate and extended the invitation before he had the chance. "She doing OK?"

"OK," Derek repeated after a moment. It was the closest he could come to accurately describing his wife's state of mind. "She was kind of freaked out last night." In his periphery, he could see Mark nod.

"Yeah, I wondered if all that ceremonial stuff might upset her."

"It didn't," Derek replied. "It upset me." Mark's silence told Derek he was waiting for an explanation. "It was just… too much. I mean, it's like, we know what happened. We can hardly think about anything _but _what happened. But people are determined to force us to think about it over and over again." He shook his head. "Anyway, I said I thought it was excessive, and she didn't really appreciate that."

"You guys have a fight?"

"Not really," Derek replied, wiping a bead of sweat away from his temple with the neck of his t-shirt. "Just… an obstacle. We talked. It's fine. Just… I forget, sometimes, how different it feels for me and for her. Like, I get it. On a purely intellectual level. But emotionally… I guess I just don't have a clue. Not really."

For once, Mark didn't have a response, and the two men fell into a comfortable silence as they passed one of the three ornamental stone gatehouses that adorned the shore of the reservoir. "Have you thought about maybe a week in the Hamptons? I know it's not your idea of paradise, but Addie loves it up there."

"I did," Derek replied, breathlessness beginning to tinge the edges of his voice. "But she's craving 'normal.' She wants things to feel normal again – I can't imagine she'd really feel up to making the trip up there just to sit around. I think the sitting around is part of what's driving her nuts."

"Makes sense," Mark agreed, his own voice slightly winded.

"OK, enough," Derek said a moment later. "What about you? What's new?"

"Not much," Mark admitted, retrieving the iPod from his pocket and clicking something on the wheel.

"I was surprised you didn't fill the fourth seat last night," Derek said, only slightly joking. "Is the ocean of Sloane charm finally drying up on you?"

"Hardly," his friend replied, dropping the iPod back into his pocket. "I just… didn't feel like bringing anyone." Derek allowed his silence to convey his skepticism as he raised his arm to wipe his brow on the shoulder of his shirt. Mark was quiet for a moment before his voice returned to the serious tone it had had when they were talking about Addison. "I just… it's getting old, y'know? Chasing tail, and whatever else. I just…" He faltered, wiping his own brow with his hand and then rubbing the hand against the thigh of his pants. "I would have traded places with her, y'know? With Addison. To give her back to you. I would have gladly traded places with her, I remember thinking. Because you need her. And she needs you." He paused, hoping his admission wasn't burdening his friend with too many painful memories. Jogging had always served as a kind of neutralizer for the two – it was unnecessary to make eye contact, to have any physical contact, to make sure the conversation flowed when the guise of exercise existed as a cushion. Any awkward silence could be attributed to catching one's breath, and admissions and confidences seemed somehow easier to reveal when their bodies were active. The jogging ritual had lent itself to many a sensitive conversation in the past. "And besides," he continued, "I remember thinking… who would really miss me?" He didn't allow Derek to interrupt with an argument, as he knew he would. "Besides you and Addie, I mean. But when it comes down to it, you guys are a family. And you're about to be an even bigger family. You need each other. I'm just kind of… on the periphery." He tried to keep his voice neutral. "Nobody really needs me. Not like that. And that's my own fault… I haven't really ever wanted that. But now… I think maybe now that's changing. Things are going to be different. You guys are becoming a family. It's not going to be all fancy dinners, clubs, Yankee games for the three of us anymore. Things are going to change. And that's great – you know I'm pumped for you guys. It's just… I'm realizing that I can't just hang on as the third wheel anymore." He paused. "I want to know there's someone who would miss me. That might be some screwed up logic, but it's the truth."

Derek glanced at his friend before returning his gaze to the path that stretched out ahead of them. "It's not screwed up," he assured him. "Not screwed up at all."

They eased back into silence as they continued their trek around the reservoir, neither one realizing that their breathing was as in sync as their steps.

---

"OK," Derek said as he entered the kitchen, his wet hair curling at his neck and hanging over his forehead. "So, I was thinking… we cab it over to Barneys, then walk up Madison to Jacadi on 67th, then walk across to Pottery Barn Kids on 69th and Second. That Giggle place is on Lexington and 74th, too, if you wanted to check it out. I remember Sav saying something about her sister's baby registry being almost entirely from there." Addison stared at him from her place at the table, a small smear of veggie cream cheese gracing her top lip and a half-eaten bagel in her hand, hovering halfway to her open mouth. He frowned, suddenly apprehensive. "What?" His hair was long enough that the collar of his crisp blue dress shirt was damp; it was untucked over his faded jeans and the cuffs were rolled up to just below his elbows. Her favorite look. She lowered her bagel.

"Jacadi?" She could have sworn she saw him blush at the mention of the fancy French children's boutique.

He tried to appear nonchalant. "_Today Show_. They were doing something on baby stuff last week. I made a note of some of the places they mentioned." He shrugged. "Reese Witherspoon bought baby stuff there," he finished lamely.

She tried to keep her smile small to avoid adding to his embarrassment. "OK. Well, it sounds like you've got it all figured out. You can lead the way." She took another bite of her bagel as Derek watched her from where he was leaning against the counter. Addison licked the residual cream cheese from her lip as she extended the last bite toward him. He stepped forward and leaned in, capturing it in his mouth and grinning. "'S better toasted," he said from around the mouthful.

She shook her head as she brushed the crumbs from her fingertips. "Not a chance." The small smile died on her lips as she had a sudden flashback to two weeks ago, when she had shared her bagel with Mark on the subway. Derek swallowed the end of her breakfast as he frowned down at her, picking up on her sudden change in mood.

"What?"

"Hm?" She looked up at him. "Oh. Nothing. Just… déjà vu. You ready?"

"Yep." He patted the worn denim of the rear pocket of his jeans. "Got the plastic. You ready to do some damage?"

"At Barney's? You bet." She forced a smile around the sudden lump that had formed in her throat as she rose from the table, crumpling the napkin in her right hand and grabbing her empty juice glass in her left.

He grinned. "I figured. Cab's on its way."

"OK. I'll get my purse." She dropped the napkin in the trashcan and deposited her glass in the sink before climbing the stairs to retrieve her purse from the bedroom. As she entered, she spotted her black Prada handbag on the dresser. She walked toward it, pulling it open to check for her wallet and sunglasses. She retrieved her cell phone from its charger beside it and dropped it into the pocket inside the lining as her gaze lifted and she was faced with her own reflection. The line from where Derek had removed her stitches was healing well; she probably wouldn't have much of a scar at all. The bruises had faded to nearly nothing; she looked almost normal.

She cast a sardonic smile at her own reflection. Normal. There was that word again.

She heard Derek call her from the foot of the stairs, alerting her that the cab had arrived. She glanced once more into the mirror before grabbing her purse from the sleek mahogany surface of the dresser and slinging it over her shoulder.

---

"Thanks," Derek said as he passed the cab fare through the partition between the front and back seats before sliding across the backseat and stepping out onto the curb of Madison Avenue. Despite the fact that it was 10 a.m. on a Wednesday, the sidewalks were milling with people. Addison glanced up at the familiar façade of the department store. So familiar, despite the current state of the city. So different, despite its complete lack of alteration. "Ready?" She turned to face her husband, who had grasped her hand gently in his, and she could see her reflection in his sunglasses, in the same way she had learned over the years that she could glimpse herself in his eyes.

"Ready," she affirmed as they approached the front doors of the store. She pushed her Marc Jacobs sunglasses to the top of her head as the red overhang shielded them from the bright autumn sun and stepped into the cool air-conditioned store that had once been her hallowed ground. She realized, suddenly, that for all the hours she had spent within its walls, she really had no clue where the children's department was. She glanced at Derek, whose face was a blank slate, waiting for her to lead the way. She offered him a nervous smile as she flagged down an employee and asked for direction.

Twenty minutes later, they were exiting the store with a soft yellow cashmere receiving blanket and a designer diaper bag that Derek had mistaken for an oversized purse. The fact that the two items had cost more than he had paid in rent per month during his med school years was an observation he opted to keep to himself. They had realized, belatedly, that there wasn't much they could do by way of nursery decorating until they had the furniture figured out, and therefore had opted to bypass the French children's boutique in favor of Pottery Barn Kids, in hopes that a crib and other nursery furniture would make their way into the picture. They walked the nine blocks north in relative silence and made their way east toward Second Avenue. As they approached the shop, Addison found herself picturing the study that they had rarely used for reasons outside of work-related reading.

"We'll need to paint it," she reiterated suddenly, as they joined a crowd at the corner, waiting for the light to give them permission to cross the street.

"Right," Derek agreed.

In her mind's eye she could see the cream-colored walls and the rich mahogany furniture, which matched the rest of the furniture they had chosen for their home. "I'm thinking white," she said after a moment. "With a border of some sort." If he was nodding, she didn't notice. "We can't do pink or blue paint without knowing, and I think green or yellow would just be annoying. Not to mention hard to decorate around."

"White's good," Derek said as the light turned and he stepped off the curb, Addison's hand in his left hand and the Barneys bag in his right. She let him lead her, her mind still back in their brownstone, already redecorating the small room across the hall from theirs.

---

"This one's nice," Derek said, his hand resting on a mahogany crib that looked like it had been designed in the same style as their own king-sized sleigh bed. She nodded noncommittally, glancing at the piece of furniture briefly before her eyes returned to roaming around the furniture area. Her gaze fell on a similarly shaped crib in white on the far side of the floor.

"That one," she said, pointing and then weaving her way through the various cribs to the one that had caught her eye. She drew to a halt beside it, placing her hand on the cool white wood and running it along the rail. "This one," she said again, this time to herself.

"Nice," Derek said as he drew up beside her, gazing into the empty crib. "More white, though? Are we going for the institutional look?"

She glanced at him quickly, noting the small smile on his lips before returning her focus to the piece of furniture before them. "I just want… bright. Light. We can do color with the linens, the décor, the border… but I want… light."

He nodded, clapping his hand onto the rail of the crib. "Light it is," he said, glancing around the floor in search of a sales associate to help them. "I sure hope they ship. I love you, and I love our child, but there's no way in hell I'm schlepping this thing across town."

Addison laughed, and she felt his eyes trail over her briefly before returning to surveying the floor. "OK. Well, let's do some more shopping and come back to the crib bit when we find someone to help us." She nodded and wandered to another section, letting her hand trail over a white changing table and a matching dresser. The nursery was beginning to take shape in her mind – a haven of light and sunshine, airy and happy. She had always favored dark, rich textures and colors – deep browns in furniture and rugs, dark picture frames, warm reds, oranges and browns in fabrics. But now, picturing the room her child would fall asleep and wake up in, she wanted something different.

Addison could feel herself latching on to the newness of the room in her mind's eye; this space would be a sanctuary, a welcome change from the way things had always been. It would be different, but not for the reason everything else was different. It would be a change for a good reason, a change she had made consciously.

She lowered herself into an overstuffed glider the color of a clear blue sky and propped her heeled feet up on the matching ottoman. She ran her hand gently over the arm of the chair, the blue fabric incredibly similar to the hue of her husband's eyes. She closed her eyes, letting her head fall back against the soft cushion as she rocked gently back and forth, a mental image of bright sunlight bouncing off walls warming her from the inside. She pictured a beach theme, with boats and seashells dotting the room, dolphins and starfish smiling down at her child from a mobile above the crib. As she rocked, she found she could already picture herself in this new room, this new life – one that she had chosen, instead of one she had been thrust into.

---

_Spring will return to the meadow  
When the long winter's chill fades away  
Tomorrow, the blossoms will open their eyes  
To the skies of a brand new day  
No matter how dark be the nightfall,  
Each day the sun is reborn  
To shine on the beauties and wonders  
That stir with new life every glorious morn_

---


End file.
